News Category

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!

New work on crystalline hybrids published in ACS Nano

Aug. 2, 2019—Our work using atomic-scale superlattices to control the IR dielectric function was just published in ACS Nano!

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!

Nanovation with Prof. Michael Filler

Apr. 15, 2019—Had the opportunity to be interviewed by Prof. Mike Filler from Georgia Tech for his podcast Nanovation. He has interviewed some awesome folks. Honored he included me! Thanks Mike! Really enjoyed the opportunity!

Tom Folland receives Honorable Mention for Vanderbilt Postdoc of the Year!

Apr. 15, 2019—Dr. Tom Folland was awarded an Honorable Mention in this year’s Vanderbilt Postdoc of the Year Award. Given annually to one winner, Tom was one of only three postdocs recognized University wide, with his exceptional abilities as a researcher, mentor, instructor and grant writer being honored. A big congrats to Tom for this outstanding achievement!

Zone-folding of optic phonons allows for hybridization with transverse phonon polaritons, which are transverse in nature. This potentially allows for the direct electrical stimulation of phonon polaritons, something that is typically not possible due to the mismatch in polarization.

Check out our most recent publication!

Apr. 15, 2019—In this work, we demonstrated the potential for overcoming the polarization selection rules that limit direct electrical excitation of phonon polaritons by using hybridized, zone-folded longitudinal optic phonons with transverse polarized localized surface phonon polaritons.

Congrats on Publication of Tunable Strong Polariton Coupling in Nano Letters

Jan. 1, 2019—Our work on polaritonic strong coupling within cadmium oxide bilayers was just published in Nano Letters! Congrats to Evan, Kyle, Tom, Ryan, Nader and Jon-Paul!

SiC Workshop Attended by Josh and Ryan

Dec. 29, 2018—Both Josh and Ryan attended and presented at the recent Silicon Carbide Materials & Devices Workshop at the Air Force Research Lab. Josh presented an invited talk on implications for SiC for advanced infrared optics and nanophotonics, while Ryan presented a poster highlighting recent results from a collaboration with Greg Walker’s group (Vanderbilt) on harnessing waste...

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

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