| Abstract Scope |
Phonon polaritons, supported by crystalline materials such as Silicon Carbide, Gallium Nitride, and Boron Nitride, enable deep sub-wavelength confinement of infrared light through surface phonon polaritons. This offers improved sensitivity to the surface and can be used to manufacture surface-sensitive chemical sensors. This talk will discuss how silicon carbide gratings and micropillar arrays can allow us to detect small quantities of aromatic molecules and hydrogen. In the former case, we will show how sensing uses field localization between silicon carbide ridges. We develop a model that allows us to predict the ability to detect aromatic vibrational modes based on the properties of silicon carbide. In the latter case, we introduce a palladium film on the surface of a silicon carbide pillar to transduce the presence of molecular hydrogen. This results in a change in the absorption of the pillar samples when exposed to small quantities of molecular hydrogen. |