Ph.D. Defense: Joshua Olitzky

Metallic nano-structures provide for new and exciting domains to investigate light-matter interactions. The coupling of these metallic nano-structures to semiconductor emitters allows for the observation of cavity QED effects including Purcell enhancement and Vacuum Rabi splitting. The focus of this dissertation will be to present an introduction and background to semiconductor optics, and metallic metamaterial systems. This will be followed by the presentation of the spectroscopy systems designed and constructed during my tenure as graduate student and the experimental data obtained with these systems. Some of the results have been published, while some of the presented material is still actively being pursued for publication. More specifically, the dissertation will cover the research at hand, experimental techniques, and results.