Results

During my scientific career I have gained an h-index of 36, resulting from 83 published journal articles (including 8 Nature and Science Groups publications and 3 PRLs), which totally attracted 3000+ citations (~40 citations per article in average). I also have a filed patent and wrote 4 book contributions. My work has been reported in 185 conference presentations, including 65 invited and keynote.

My most recent research is related to nanoscale plasmonics, particularly how the nanoscale size of the plasmonic objects influences their optical response through the modification of the optical properties of the metal [74,72]. In parallel, I have investigated electron tunnelling effects in electrically-driven light-emitting plasmonic nanorod metamaterials and shown their applications for maniputation of chemical reactions at the nanoscale [50]*, neuromorphic networks [65], sensing [63] and realisation of tuneable nanoscale light sources [64,66]. A macroscopic counterpart the tunnelling excitation is cathodoluminescence microscopy, in which an electron beam is used to excite and monitor nanophotonic modes [56,8]. Following another strategic direction, on the basis of the hydrodynamic model describing free electron gas I have developed a comprehensive numerical model for the description of nonlinear optical phenomena in metallic nanostructures [51,44,39], which underpinned further experimental research [53]. Exploring the optical effects driven by the intrinsic metallic nonlinearities, I also showed the nonlinear coupling of plasmonic modes in a metallic nanoparticle [27] as well as numerically demonstrated the intriguing phenomena of the formation of cascaded plasmon-solitons [30]. Together with the large increase of the local pumping intensity metallic nonlinearities create a great potential for nanostructured plasmonic materials to control and enhance nonlinear effects [62,60,53,52,42,31]. Nanoscale plasmonic heterostructures hold a great potential for photochemistry and photocatalysis [69,59]. Additionally, a large part of my research is related to novel natural optical materials with controlled and enhanced linear and nonlinear properties [61,28]. Targeting the practical applications, I took part in the development of optically- [18] and electrically- [26] pumped signal amplification schemes for highly-integrated photonic circuits. Furthermore, on the basis of the latter approach nanoscale integrated lasing components have been numerically demonstrated [67], while VCSEL-based SPP laser has been experimentally realised [45]. The Schottky junction employed in the electrical pumping scheme can be also used in the reverse way in photodetection, which was shown to be enhanced by the excitation of nanophotonic modes [68]. My present work is also largely connected with investigation of intensity and lifetime modification (Purcell effect) in the nanostructured environment [43,41,38,37,34]. Hyperbolic metamaterials are particularly beneficial from this point of view due to high local density of electromagnetic states [58,71,49,48,36]. The structure of electromagnetic modes supported by hyperbolic metamaterials leads to a giant radiation-recoil self-torque a molecule experiences in such environment [32] and strong optical forces experienced by a nano-object in their vicinity [57]. Classical methods for manipulation of micro- and nano-objects were discussed is a specialised review [35]. Finally, the study of scattering processes for unconventional states of light in both visible and microwave frequency domains lead to the experimental demonstration of the generalisation of the optical theorem [54].

A large part of my research is related to the development of highly-integrated optoelectronic circuits [46,24,20,19]. During my work on EPSRC and EC projects, in which I was a designated task leader, I numerically showed compact and efficient photonic circuit components on the basis of dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) waveguides [40,12,10], their performance was confirmed in the experiments with remarkable agreement [22,16,15,14,13]. This, and related work have been recently summarised in my recent review on this topic [40]. I have also demonstrated various approaches and components for an active control of SPP waves, both electro-optical and all-optical [47,40,25,21,17]. In relation to this, I have experimentally demonstrated the all-plasmonic modulation of co-propagating SPP signals at an interface with an Er-based gain medium and for the first time have introduced an analytical theory of this process [23]. Furthermore, I have developed a quantitative theoretical approach for numerical treatment of optically-pumped SPP amplification in waveguide geometry. During research on the active control of SPP modes, I experimentally demonstrated an integrated SPP switch [25] and as a culmination of this work I numerically demonstrated an electro-optic modulator having a revolutionary small size of just 100 nm [28]. Finally, I have performed a comprehensive mode analysis of Si-based [19] and metallic nanowire [24,20] waveguides, compatible with the CMOS fabrication technology. Summarising the activity in this area, the performance of both active and passive integrated optical circuits has been benchmarked via the introduction of comprehensive figures of merit [46].

During my PhD research in the EPSRC NanoPhotonics Portfolio Centre (University of Southampton) I developed a pioneering concept of Active Plasmonics , based on nanoscale structural (phase) transformations in SPP waveguides. Particularly, I have demonstrated a Ga-based switch for a photonic signal in a form of SPP waves both theoretically [2] and experimentally [4]. I have also experimentally shown that structural transformations in SPP waveguides can be used to control the efficiency of SPP-light coupling [3]. A new Ga/Al nano-composite material for nonlinear optics and plasmonics has also been developed [11,9]. Finally, I have conducted the first study of the transmission of circularly polarized light through a chiral opening in a metallic screen and found that the transmission is enantiomericly sensitive [7,6,5,1], which opens the prospective for the polarisation-sensitive light harvesting. A related question of plasmonically-enhanced optical acticity was experimentally invertigated at a later stage [55].

Apart from this, I have developed a keen interest in other areas of physics, particularly involving inter-disciplinary research. This includes the optically-assisted investigation of cell self-sorting phenomena in biology [29] and the development of a quantum mechanical theoretical framework for the explanation of the phenomenon of quantum jumps [1, conf.]. Finally, in crystallography I have taken part in the investigation of the auxetic (negative Poisson ratio) properties of metals and metallic alloys [33].


* All citations, if not stated otherwise, are given according to my list of publications (see "Journal articles" in "Publications" section).


 
so far
Hit counter
hits