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Chuck Rohde |
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| Office: | 71 Willamette Hall | |
| Phone: | (541) 346-5921 | |
| Personal Website: | http://www.mo.uoregon.edu/crohde/personal.htm |
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| Research Synopsis: | Updated 8/29/06 |
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| When a metal particle is scaled to a size smaller than the mean free path of a conduction electron, bulk metal properties become an inadequate description of the system. In addition to the bulk electron density, the system’s plasmon frequency becomes a function of the size, shape, and the (possibly) new electron effective mass. Due primarily to developments in the control of nano-scale structures, studies of these nano-scale system's electronic and optical properties have become accessible. The study of the linear and nonlinear optical properties of nano-scale mixed metal-dielectric structures is the primary focus of my research. The inherent surface sensitivity of these plasmonic systems, due to their large surface field enhancement, makes them an attractive tool for sensing applications and a rich area in which to study nonlinear electromagnetic properties. To that end, using the roughly coated microspheres created in our group, I experimentally test their linear and nonlinear optical properties with techniques such as extinction spectroscopy and percolation enhanced nonlinear scattering (PENS). To gain additional insight into the electromagnetic properties of meta-coated dielectric spheres, I also computationally model the electromagnetic fields scattered by metal coated dielectric particles with Lorentz-Mie theory. Using our home brewed C++ code, I model both single layer and multiple layer metal-dielectric spherical systems. While the single layer systems are interesting because of their experimental accessibility, we have also found computationally that multilayer systems become their own interesting area of research due to the effects of plasmon-plasmon coupling. The results of this modeling can be found in the simulation section of this web site. |
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