Optically Trapped Plasmonic Tetrapods for Substrate-less Active MetaArrays – METATRAP

The project aims to the development of a meta-array constituted from plasmonic gold nanoparticles in the shape of tetrapods trapped in a multi-trap optical trap. The array will this be substrate-less and active through the modification of the exact properties of the trapping operation. The work will entail the synthesis, characterization and modelization of the tetrapods and then their second harmonic generation study before their introduction into the optical trap to constitute the meta-array. The latter array will build a unique second harmonic generation response from the exact arrangement of the array. The active behavior of the array will be adequate for operation in communication and cryptography applications.