New lower-dimensional optical materials, enabled by recent advances in nano-fabrication technologies, are advancing photonic technology beyond that allowed by conventional three-dimensional bulk optical materials. These emerging optical materials are of new compositions, or traditional compounds fabricated in lower dimensional geometries on a micro and nanoscale, specially customized for particular usages. Examples are: carbon nanotubes; two-dimensional photonic crystals and meta material surface coatings; and low dimensional Van-der-Waals systems such as graphene, silicene, germanene, and boron nitride. Carbon, either as two-dimensional graphene, or one-dimensional nanotubes, are of great interest for their unusual optical as well as electronic properties. Topological insulators, where a thin two-dimensional conducting sheet is formed on an insulator by its topology, is an emerging material with spintronics applications. Three-dimensional printing and mask-less lithography of materials is incorporating these lower-dimensional materials in new novel applications. These synthetic lower-dimensional photonic materials bridge the microscopic quantum world and the mesoscopic world, enabling advances in photonic devices for communication, sensing, bio-medicine, optical interconnects, quantum computation, medical diagnostics, and compact low-cost manufacturing.
This workshop will bring together the leading experts in this field to discuss the latest research in lower-dimensional optical materials and their future technological applications. This workshop also aims to foster communication and collaboration through networking among the individual engineers and researchers attending. Learn more about the rapid advances of novel lower-dimensional optical materials directly from the foremost researchers in the different specialties involved, by registering for and attending this local Boston Emerging Optical Materials Workshop.