Date of Award
Spring 2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Applied Physics
First Advisor
Miller, Owen
Abstract
Nanoscale fabrication techniques, computational inverse design, and fields from silicon photonics to metasurface optics are enabling transformative use of an unprecedented number of structural degrees of freedom in nanophotonics. A critical need is to understand the extreme limits to what is possible by engineering nanophotonic structures. This thesis establishes the first general theoretical framework identifying fundamental limits to light–matter interactions, and derives bounds for a wide range of applications across nanophotonics, including far-field scattering, optimal wavefront shaping, optical beam switching, and wave communications, as well as the miniaturization of optical components including perfect absorbers, linear optical analog computing units, resonant optical sensors, multilayered thin films, and high-NA metalenses. The bounds are identified by maximizing the electromagnetic response of interest under an infinite set of conservation constraints that have to be satisfied by polarization fields in any scattering events. The constraints include power-conservation laws for a single scattering and correlation-conservation laws for multiple scatterings. The framework developed in this thesis, encompassing any linear and quadratic response functions in wave scattering dynamics, offers a new way to understand optimal geometric designs and their fundamental limits, in nanophotonics and beyond.
Recommended Citation
Kuang, Zeyu, "Fundamental Limits of Nanophotonic Design" (2023). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 937.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/937
