Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics

Incoherent light from random emitters, such as thermal radiation, are very common in nature. However, modeling such random emitters may be challenging, as it naively requires Maxwell’s equations to be solved for all emitters to obtain the total response, which becomes computationally intractable in...

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Main Author: Yao, Wenjie
Other Authors: Johnson, Steven G.
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2023
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147522
https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-3165-8724
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author Yao, Wenjie
author2 Johnson, Steven G.
author_facet Johnson, Steven G.
Yao, Wenjie
author_sort Yao, Wenjie
collection MIT
description Incoherent light from random emitters, such as thermal radiation, are very common in nature. However, modeling such random emitters may be challenging, as it naively requires Maxwell’s equations to be solved for all emitters to obtain the total response, which becomes computationally intractable in conjunction with large-scale optimization (inverse design). In this work, we present a trace formulation of random emitters that can be efficiently combined with inverse design, even for topology optimization over thousands of design degrees of freedom. We begin with a trivial case where the emitter is at a single location with random orientations, which leads to compute the local density of states (LDOS). In a previous work, a shape-independent upper limit was derived for LDOS, but simple geometries such as bowtie are 2-3 orders of magnitude away from this limit. By computational optimization of air-void cavities in metallic substrates, we show that the LDOS can reach within a factor of ≈ 10 of the upper limits, and within a factor ≈ 4 for the single-polarization LDOS, demonstrating that the theoretical limits are nearly attainable. We then study the more general case where emitters are distributed randomly in space. We present several examples of incoherent-emission topology optimization (TopOpt), including tailoring the geometry of fluorescent particles, a periodically emitting surface, and a structure emitting into a waveguide mode. Finally, we employ our trace formulation for inverse design of nanopatterned surfaces that maximize spatially averaged surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) spectra from molecules distributed randomly throughout a material or fluid. This leads to radically different designs than optimizing SERS emission at a single known location, as we illustrate using several 2D design problems addressing effects of hot-spot density, angular selectivity, and nonlinear damage. We obtain optimized structures that perform about 4× better than coating with optimized spheres or bowtie structures and about 20× better when the nonlinear damage effects are included.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1475222023-01-20T03:38:42Z Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics Yao, Wenjie Johnson, Steven G. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Incoherent light from random emitters, such as thermal radiation, are very common in nature. However, modeling such random emitters may be challenging, as it naively requires Maxwell’s equations to be solved for all emitters to obtain the total response, which becomes computationally intractable in conjunction with large-scale optimization (inverse design). In this work, we present a trace formulation of random emitters that can be efficiently combined with inverse design, even for topology optimization over thousands of design degrees of freedom. We begin with a trivial case where the emitter is at a single location with random orientations, which leads to compute the local density of states (LDOS). In a previous work, a shape-independent upper limit was derived for LDOS, but simple geometries such as bowtie are 2-3 orders of magnitude away from this limit. By computational optimization of air-void cavities in metallic substrates, we show that the LDOS can reach within a factor of ≈ 10 of the upper limits, and within a factor ≈ 4 for the single-polarization LDOS, demonstrating that the theoretical limits are nearly attainable. We then study the more general case where emitters are distributed randomly in space. We present several examples of incoherent-emission topology optimization (TopOpt), including tailoring the geometry of fluorescent particles, a periodically emitting surface, and a structure emitting into a waveguide mode. Finally, we employ our trace formulation for inverse design of nanopatterned surfaces that maximize spatially averaged surface-enhanced Raman (SERS) spectra from molecules distributed randomly throughout a material or fluid. This leads to radically different designs than optimizing SERS emission at a single known location, as we illustrate using several 2D design problems addressing effects of hot-spot density, angular selectivity, and nonlinear damage. We obtain optimized structures that perform about 4× better than coating with optimized spheres or bowtie structures and about 20× better when the nonlinear damage effects are included. Ph.D. 2023-01-19T19:55:55Z 2023-01-19T19:55:55Z 2022-09 2022-10-19T19:11:43.840Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147522 https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-3165-8724 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright MIT http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Yao, Wenjie
Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics
title Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics
title_full Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics
title_fullStr Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics
title_full_unstemmed Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics
title_short Inverse Design of Random Emitters in Nanophotonics
title_sort inverse design of random emitters in nanophotonics
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147522
https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-3165-8724
work_keys_str_mv AT yaowenjie inversedesignofrandomemittersinnanophotonics