Faculty: John H. Simon
Dr. Simon has pioneered in developing the field of surface nonlinear optics by using surface plasmons to produce optical second harmonic generation (SHG). Surface plasmons are resonant waves of light which travel on a metal surface while SHG is the process of changing the color of a laser beam by frequency doubling. That the use of surface plasmons is an efficient method for producing reflected SHG has been shown.
He also pursued the potential device applications of surface plasmons. If the medium adjacent to the metal film is a thin liquid crystal layer the surface plasmon resonance can be controlled by applying a voltage to this layer. Used in the reflection mode such a device may serve as the basis of a color TV projector or in the scattering mode as a flat panel display. Surface plasmons are sensitive to even single monolayers of atoms at the metal interface. This property may be utilized to detect the biological interaction of bodies and antibodies on a metal surface and thus give rise to a new method of performing immunoassays.