this talk focuses on some of the most serious challenges faced in semiconductor photonics, especially semiconductor lasers such as： 1) size and energy efficiency challenge, i.e., how to make semiconductor lasers smaller and more energy efficient; 2) wavelength diversity challenge, i.e. how to make lasers of different colors or widely tunable wavelengths on a given substrate; and 3) integration challenge, i.e., large scale integration of lasers with electronics, especially on silicon. successful resolutions to these challenges would profoundly impact future information technology and energy technologies.
this talk will discuss progresses made over the last 10 years or so in resolving these challenges by going nano, i.e., by taking advantages of nanoscale semiconductor materials and devices. we will discuss three examples of progresses: 1) nanolasers based on plasmonic or metallic cavities; 2) nanolasers based on semiconductor nanowires and nano-membranes including multi-color and white lasers; 3) nanocavities integrated with two-dimensional (2d) monolayer of transition metal dichalcogenides (tmcs).
biography：
cun-zheng ningis the director of tsinghua international center for nano-optoelectronics and professor of electronic engineering, tsinghua university and professor of electrical engineering at arizona state university. he received his phd in physics from the university of stuttgart, germany in 1991. he has over 200 publications on laser physics, nanophotonics and nanolasers and has given over 220 invited or plenary talks worldwide. he was a nanophotonics group leader at nasa ames research centre (1997-2007), issp visiting professor at university of tokyo in 2006, visiting professor at technical university of berlin and tsinghua university in 2013. since 2006, he has been professor of electrical engineering and affiliate professor in physics and materials science and engineering at arizona state university. he was selected into the “thousand talen program” in china in 2012. he was a winner of several awards including nasa and nasa contractor awards, nasa space act patent awards, csc technical excellence award, and ieee/photonics society distinguished lecturer award (2007-2009). dr. ning is a fellow of the optical society (osa), ieee, and the electromagnetic academy. his many achievements have been widely reported in radio, tv, news media and tech magazines such as science and nature photonics. the first white laser demonstration by his group has won “the best of tech in 2015” and the “top 10 engineering achievements” by popular science magazine. his research on 2d material based nanolasers was selected for the top 10 most important progresses in china in 2017.
