The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $416,059 Project Grant titled "COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: FIRST-PRINCIPLE CONTROL OF NOVEL RESONANCES IN NON-HERMITIAN PHOTONIC MEDIA" under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). This grant supports integrated research, education, and outreach focused on studying a novel behavior of light within solid materials. The researchers aim to establish a complex non-Hermitian photonic environment through first-principle...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) will provide $402,134 from September 1, 2024 to August 31, 2027 to support research and development of a novel class of semiconductor nanostructures called non-Hermitian topological photonic crystals. The key products and services to be delivered include: Designing, fabricating, and characterizing the optical properties and optoelectronic device applications of these photonic crystal slabs,...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $1,198,092 will support research at Northwestern University from August 1, 2022 to July 31, 2025 under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). The university will design photonic lattices and multilayer structures that can confine light in small spaces near metal nanostructures and support electrically-driven excitation. Researchers will fabricate new architectures based on multilayer nanoparticle arrays and realize...
This $155,145 federal Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences program supports research on non-Hermitian physics in ultracold atoms and photonics at The Washington University in St. Louis. The key objectives are to: (I) construct and characterize new topological photonic lattices through Hermitian and non-Hermitian control; (II) study novel topological phases arising from unique continuous hyperbolic metamaterials; and (III) generate...
This $523,635 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program supports research at Colgate University to explore techniques for creating novel three-dimensional light patterns that have potential applications in biomedical imaging, communications, and quantum metrology. The principal investigator and undergraduate research team will investigate how manipulating the degrees of freedom in light, such as polarization and...
The Research Foundation of the City University of New York (RFCUNY) was awarded a $449,997 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Materials Research under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). The grant will fund research on strain engineering of exciton-polaritons in two-dimensional semiconductors at the City College of New York from September 2021 through August 2024. The NSF Mathematical and Physical Sciences program supports progress in...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $181,751 supported research at the University of Rhode Island from August 15, 2022 to June 30, 2025 under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). The award funded theoretical research exploring nonclassical states of light as resources for quantum metrology. Specifically, the principal investigator and their research group investigated quantifying nonclassical states using the framework of quantum resource theory and...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Integrative Activities (CFDA 47.083) provides $945,926 to Norfolk State University (NSU) and Jackson State University (JSU) to design and fabricate tunable hybrid nanostructures for photonic materials research. The project aims to achieve precise control of light-matter interactions in nanoscale environments, enabling the development of novel photonic technologies. Key activities include experimental studies and...
This Project Grant award of $500,000 from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Federal Grant Program (CFDA 47.070) supports research focused on solving challenges in designing and improving optical resonators, which are essential components in technologies such as the internet, medical diagnostics, and advanced computing. The project aims to develop a computational framework that leverages high-performance computing to enable faster and...
This National Science Foundation Project Grant of $567,000 supports research from April 2023 through March 2026 under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049). The University of Nebraska-Lincoln will develop new ultrathin dielectric helical metamaterials to strongly enhance and tune their chiroptical response across the visible spectrum. The research aims to unlock novel ways to efficiently manipulate the broadband chirality, spin angular momentum, and transverse spin of...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $308,145 Project Grant under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) to the Research Foundation of the City University of New York (RFCUNY) on September 1, 2023. The 3-year collaborative research project, "First-Principle Control of Novel Resonances in Non-Hermitian Photonic Media," explores a novel behavior of light within solid materials. The research aims to establish a complex non-Hermitian photonic environment through first-principle control of the imaginary part of the refractive index, uncovering a new type of light-matter interaction governed by the system's non-Hermiticity. The project combines integrated theoretical and experimental research to design photonic active resonators, with the goal of developing a highly tunable broadband laser for applications in optical communications and computing. This interdisciplinary project also provides research opportunities for graduate, undergraduate, and high school students, with a focus on underrepresented groups in STEM.