Grant: Strategic Projects Supplemental Competition

With conventional electronics quickly approaching its theoretical speed and integration limits, researchers worldwide are looking to fundamentally new technologies to develop next-generation communication and computing devices that can be realized at the nanoscale and are capable of ultrafast signal processing speed.Although nonlinear optical devices can in principle deliver switching speeds in the terahertz range, they require large power to operate and their dimensions are ultimately limited by the diffraction limit, which is in the hundreds of nanometers at the optical wavelengths. The emergence of nanoplasmonics in the past few years presents a fundamentally new technology that can be used to confine and guide light at sub-diffraction length scales. The strong field confinement in these structures can also be exploited to obtain low-power switching operations. The proposed strategic project seeks to combine the fields of plasmonics and nonlinear optics to develop a fundamentally new technological platform for realizing nanoscale plasmonic devices capable of performing ultrafast digital logic functions. These devices could potentially serve as the basic building blocks for the next generation of computers and networks. The project falls within the NSERC target area of Advanced Communications and Management of Information and directly addresses the research topic Advanced materials, devices and supporting tools. The proposed research is both strategic and timely since the knowledge, innovations and training of highly qualified personnel resulted from the project will strongly enhance Canada's technological competitiveness and help establish the country's early leadership in the emerging field of nanoplasmonics.