Author

Check out Tom’s VINSE Podcasts

Jun. 22, 2020—Check out Tom talking about our work published in ACS photonics with Alice Leach of VINSE here

Check out our work on thermal emission and strong coupling in silicon carbide

Mar. 2, 2020—Two of our recent papers have shown how silicon carbide nanostructures can be used to make efficient infrared emitters or ahcieve coherent energy transfer to a vibrational mode in a liquid

Congratulations to Sam White, winner of a ‘Best Poster’ at MRS Fall

Dec. 6, 2019—Tom, Ryan and Sam recently attended MRS fall to present some of our work on boron nitride, silicon carbide and cadmium oxide. Sam was awarded a best poster award for his work on VO2 as a high quality substrate for 2D materials!

Dr. Tom Folland (Postdoctoral Fellow). Joined the Caldwell Lab at the very beginning, was critical to getting the lab setup and initial results getting accumulated. He comes to us from University of Manchester in the UK, where he did his PhD work on THz quantum cascade lasers.

Tom features in ‘postdoc spotlight’

Sep. 30, 2019—Tom has been highlighted by the Vanderbilt University graduate school for his work on polariton propagation in hBN. Check out his profile here

Summer students do top research

Aug. 12, 2019—Thanks to Autumn and Alyssa for all the hard work they put in this summer. Both had really productive summers, and managed to get a lot of great data studying the detection of gasses and liquids using infrared spectroscopy. In particular, congratulations to Alyssa – who won the NSF REU best poster award!

Tutorial Published in the Journal of Applied Physics

May. 21, 2019—Check out our new tutorial, co-authored with Prof. Dan Wasserman at UT Austin. We discuss the physics and measurement of infrared polaritons, comprehensively reviewed for the first time!

Ma et al. show that the material molybdenum trioxide can be used to precisely control the polarization of infrared light. a, Optical components known as waveplates can convert linearly polarized light into circularly polarized light. In the infrared, a waveplate made of a conventional material requires a thickness in excess of 1 millimetre. This material could be replaced with a thin slab of molybdenum trioxide, with a thickness on the order of tens of micrometres. b, Components called polarizers can convert unpolarized light (in which the polarization points in all directions) into linearly polarized light. In the infrared, polarizers made from conventional materials typically need to be thick and use a large grid of metal wires. Such a structure could be replaced with a thin film of molybdenum trioxide that requires essentially no fabrication. c, Nanoscale photonic structures made from conventional materials can emit unpolarized infrared light. But if molybdenum trioxide were used, linearly polarized emission could be achieved.

New class of anisotropic material discovered

Nov. 20, 2018—Check out Tom’s and Joshes News and Views covering the applications and implications of the recent work by Ma et. al. on Molybdenum trioxide – a new class of natural hyperbolic material

Refraction of Hyperbolic Polaritons using Phase Change Materials

Oct. 26, 2018—We are delighted to say that our work on controlling hyperbolic polaritons in hBN using the phase change material VO2 has been published in Nature Comms! Also – Check out Tom and Josh’s News and Views published in nature this week!

New Publication on Strong Coupling in Phonon-Polariton systems

Jun. 19, 2018—Congratulations to Nikolai for his publication ‘Strong Coupling of Epsilon-Near-Zero Phonon Polaritons in Polar Dielectric Heterostructures’ in Nano letters. We show that the epsilon near zero mode in a thin film of aluminium nitride strongly couples to a phonon polariton in Silicon Carbide. This work features simulations and analysis by Tom.