Computational Nanophotonics: Basics, Challenges and Future Perspectives - Dr. Salah Obayya

Dr. Salah Obayya

Chair Professor and Founding Director
 
Center for Photonics and Smart Materials

Zewail City of Science and Technology

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February 23, 2023 at 9:00 am in Henley Hall 1010 and on Zoom 

Schematic diagram of optical waveguides with multiple longitudinal discontinuities (i − 1) [12]. The first discontinuity is located at z = 0. {ψ −}i and {ψ +}i are the backward and forward propagating fields, respectively, usually used in BiBPMs. Afaf Said, Khaled S. R. Atia, and S. S. A. Obayya, "On modeling of plasmonic devices: overview," J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 37, A163-A174 (2020)

Nanophotonics modelling for 21st century applications is becoming vital.  The computational modeling provides a fundamental understanding of the relying physics behind the operation of photonic devices. However, computational modeling is still a challenge as some of the existing modeling techniques fail to capture the correct behavior of nano-photonic devices. In this regard, this talk will introduce an overview of the existing computational modeling tools for analyzing photonic  devices, in general, and highlighting their salient features and shortcomings. It is well known that “plasmonics” plays a vital role now in localising the optical field beyond the diffraction limit and hence in integrated optics. Therefore, the talk will focus on plasmonics modeling issues and the failure of the classical electromagnetic solvers to accurately characterize the nano-plasmonic devices. Therefore, new accurate and stable beam propagation method will be introduced for analyzing plasmonics in the classical regime. The rigor of this approach is mainly because of relying on the finite elements method and  the twice faster Blocked Schur algorithm which can exactly represent all the wide spectrum of radiation, evanescent, and surface modes produced by the strong discontinuity between metal and its surroundings. Moreover, in merging quantum plasmonic devices, it becomes essential to introduce “Quantum Corrected Model (QCM)” in order to accurately model these devices, and the basics of QCM will be also discussed.

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Dr. Salah Obayya Biography: 

Salah S A Obayya joined Zewail City of Science and Technology (ZC) in 2012 where he is now Chair Professor and Founding Director of Center for Photonics and Smart Materials (CPSM). He occupied the positions of the Vice Chairman of ZC and Director-General of Research Institutes at the same institution. Prior to Zewail City, he took up several academic posts at Brunel University UK (tenured Associate Professor, 2002), University of Leeds, UK (tenured Professor, 2006) and University of South Wales, UK (tenured Chair Professor, 2008) where he was the Founding Director of Photonics and Broadband Communications (PBC) Research Center and also he was the Director of Postgraduate Programs at the same institution. In May 2006, he has been naturalized as “British” citizen.

He has established an outstanding international reputation in the area of green nanophotonics with focus on the intelligent computational modeling of modern nano-photonic devices enabling technologies needed to realise low-carbon green society. He has published 271 journal publications, mostly in OSA, IEEE and IET/IEE, authored 3 books (Computational Photonics, Wiley 2010 and Computational Liquid Crystal Photonics, Wiley 2016, Computational of Photonic sensors, 2018) both are adopted references for Graduate Programs in Photonics at international Universities such as MIT, Purdue University, Indian Institute of Technology, National University of Singapore, Mansoura University and Zewail City, and 264 conference papers in international conference in photonics, many of these are invited talks, and keynote lectures, attracted external funding, from both industry and Research Councils, in the region of $ 4M, and supervised to successful completion 35 PhD students, over 70 MSc/MRes/MPhil students and 15 postdoctoral research fellows. He led the team that developed one of the world’s best comprehensive numerical packages for the analysis, design and optimization of nano-photonic devices, and subsystems, where a number of “world-first” numerical approaches have been developed. His five key papers introducing his novel numerical package; have been cited more than 400 times.  His publications also have been cited more than 4000 times, with an h-index of 34 and i10-index of 118. His numerical package has been widely adopted by both academic and industrial Photonics communities to analyze, design and optimize the performance of a wide range of nano-photonic devices employed for applications in solar cells, optical telecoms, sensing, optical imaging and encryption and other applications.

He has served the International Photonics Society through active contribution to the organization and technical committees of a number of international conferences. Since 2007, he has been an Associate Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Photonics Technology Letters, and Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Optical and Quantum Electronics, and served as Guest Editor-in-Chief of J Optical and Quantum Electronics (2010), and founding member of Editorial Board of Materials Theory Journal (Springer) and acted as Reviewer for many international Photonics Journals such as IEEE J Lightwave Technology, IEEE Photonics Journal IEEE J Quantum Electronics, IEEE J Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IET Optoelectronics, OSA Optics Express, OSA Optics Letters, and many others. Moreover, he acted as Technical expert and Reviewer for a number of research funding councils and learnt societies such as Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), UK, Royal Society, UK, Royal Academy of Engineering, UK, National Academy of Arts and Sciences, Holland, Science and Technology Development Fund, Egypt, National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), Egypt and others.