Ultrafast and Nonlinear Response of Hybrid Plasomonic Nanosystems

Title: Ultrafast and Nonlinear Response of Hybrid Plasomonic Nanosystems

Abstract: The nanoscale confinement and reduced dimensionality of materials open up new possibilities for controlling and enhancing the light-matter interaction. Nanostructuring leads not only to novel electromagnetic phenomena but can also affect the nature of photo-assisted electronic transitions and ultrafast carrier dynamics. In this talk, I will present our latest efforts in the manipulation of light-matter interaction at the nanoscale using metal plasmonic nanosystems. The first part of the talk will focus on the enhancement of the nonlinear optical effects at the nanoscale and the design of efficient nonlinear metasurfaces. The role of various factors such as field-enhancement, hybridization of resonances, mode symmetry and overlap will be considered. In the second part of the talk I will discuss how the spatial localization of the electromagnetic fields can enable forbidden quantum transitions in materials. In particular, the enhancement of intraband absorption in gold through resonant Landau damping will be addressed.

 Bio: Hayk Harutyunyan is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Emory University. He received his PhD in 2009 from University of Pisa (Italy) working on the optical properties of carbon nanotubes. He continued his career working with Lukas Novotny at the University of Rochester focusing on plasmonics and nanoscale nonlinear optics. He started his current position in 2014, after a two-year stint at Argonne National Lab where he worked on ultrafast optical spectroscopy in the group of Gary Wiederrecht. Prof. Harutyunyan’s current interests include optical metamaterials, nonlinear plasmonics and ultrafast optical effects in nanosystems.