Description du projet
Des métamatériaux avancés
Les métamatériaux sont des matériaux composites conçus et fabriqués artificiellement à partir d’unités présentant des propriétés et des fonctions spécifiques. Ces microstructures internes et leur disposition dans des géométries spécifiques confèrent aux métamatériaux des capacités impossibles à obtenir avec des matériaux naturels. Financé par le Conseil européen de la recherche, le projet CELICOIDS entend développer des métamatériaux chiraux dépourvus de symétrie miroir, mais capables de faire tourner les ondes électromagnétiques. Ces métamatériaux auto-assemblés présentent un grand intérêt pour la chimie analytique et la biologie. Les chercheurs s’appuieront sur des nanocristaux de cellulose pour les générer et les fonctionnaliser en vue de nouvelles applications.
Objectif
Chirality plays a fundamental role in natural sciences and pharmacology. The ability to detect chiral molecules relies heavily on inherently weak circularly polarized light-matter interactions. Such interactions are enhanced in the presence of chiral metamaterials, which exhibit extraordinary electromagnetic properties not observed in nature. To date, large and broadband circular dichroism in the UV-visible spectrum requires arrays of metallic nanohelices in order to combine internal and Bragg resonances. However, their fabrication relies on costly electron/ion beam lithography or physical vapor deposition, in which it is difficult and time-consuming to control nanoscale morphology over large areas. New types of helix metamaterials and engineering processes based on self-assembly concepts are absolutely necessary in order to be viable for future technologies. Nevertheless, self-assembled metamaterials with large, broadband and tunable chiroptical responses in the UV-visible region is a great challenge due to the required subwavelength feature sizes. To this end, the helicoidal morphologies of chiral liquid crystals provide the ideal platform for maximizing chiral light-matter interactions. The objective of CELICOIDS is to investigate the use of the chiral liquid crystal phases of cellulose nanocrystals with end-tethered polyoxyethylene analogues as templates for the fabrication of a new class of metamaterial, solid metallic nanohelicoids. A recent breakthrough that now makes this project possible is the discovery that such cellulose nanocrystal hybrids form chiral liquid crystal phases. As one of the very few researchers in the world with the combined expertise in cellulose chemistry, polymer grafting and colloidal assembly, I am the ideal candidate to achieve success. New functionalities are envisioned thereafter, applicable to future devices for invisibility cloaking, super-resolution imaging and chiral sensing, prompting a change in paradigm in metamaterials.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesopticsmicroscopysuper resolution microscopy
- natural scienceschemical sciencespolymer sciences
- engineering and technologynanotechnologynano-materialsnanocrystals
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacy
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringliquid crystals
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régime de financement
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Institution d’accueil
08034 Barcelona
Espagne