This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 9921, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction, and Conference Committee listing.

The scaling of active photonic devices to deep-submicron length-scales has been hampered by the fundamental law of diffraction and the absence of materials with sufficiently strong electrooptic effects. Here, we demonstrate a solid state electro-optical switching mechanism that can operate in the visible spectral range with an active volume that is comparable to the size of the smallest active electronic components. The switching mechanism relies on electrochemically displacing atoms inside the nanometer-scale gap between two crossed metallic wires forming a crosspoint junction. Such junctions afford extreme light concentration and display singular optical behavior upon formation of a conductive channel. We illustrate how this effect can be used to actively tune the resonances of a plasmonic antenna. The tuning mechanism is analyzed using a combination of electrical and optical measurements as well as electron energy loss (EELS) in a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM).

3D Metamaterial absorber was used for a background-suppressed surface-enhanced molecular detection technique. By utilizing the resonant coupling of plasmonic modes of a metamaterial absorber and infrared (IR) vibrational modes of a self-assembled monolayer (SAM), attomole level molecular sensitivity was experimentally demonstrated. IR absorption spectroscopy of molecular vibrations is of importance in chemical, material, medical science and so on, since it provides essential information of the molecular structure, composition, and orientation. In the vibrational spectroscopic techniques, in addition to the weak signals from the molecules, strong background degrades the signal-to-noise ratio, and suppression of the background is crucial for the further improvement of the sensitivity. Here, we demonstrate low-background resonant Surface enhanced IR absorption (SEIRA) by using the metamaterial IR absorber that offers significant background suppression as well as plasmonic enhancement. The fabricated metamaterial consisted of 1D array of Au micro-ribbons on a thick Au film separated by a transparent gap layer made of MgF2. The surface structures were designed to exhibit an anomalous IR absorption at ~ 3000 cm-1, which spectrally overlapped with C-H stretching vibrational modes. 16-Mercaptohexadecanoic acid (16-MHDA) was used as a test molecule, which formed a 2-nm thick SAM with their thiol head-group chemisorbed on the Au surface. In the FTIR measurements, the symmetric and asymmetric C-H stretching modes were clearly observed as reflection peaks within a broad plasmonic absorption of the metamaterial.

Optical vortices are waves carrying orbital angular momentum and exhibit helical phase fronts. Helical phase front leads to discontinuous azimuthal phase jumps and the number of phase discontinuities (abrupt phase jumps from-pi to pi) within a 2pi range is referred to as the topological charge of an optical vortex. Optical vortices have been applied in trapping and spinning of microparticles, and recently in free-space data transmission. Generation of optical beams carrying orbital angular momentum has received increasing attentions recently, both in the far-field and in the near-field. Near-field vortices are typically generated through the excitation of surface plasmons (SP). However, the intensity patterns of the SP vortices generated thus far, just like the free-space vortex beams, are all azimuthally symmetrical (annular) since mathematically they conform to the Bessel function. In this talk, I will first introduce our recent progress on spatial shaping the near-field spatial patterns of surface plasmon vortices. Moreover, in all past studies, SP vortices were excited by far-field circularly polarized light. This means the functionality of the SP devices were merely converting the far-field spin angular momentum to orbital angular momentum in the near-field. In the second part, I will focus on the creation of surface plasmon vortex using non-angular momentum excitation. In the last part, the application of surface plasmon vortex for particle trapping and rotation will be presented.

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Nonlinear phenomena provide novel light manipulation capabilities and innovative applications. Recently, we discovered nonlinear saturation on single-particle scattering of gold nanospheres by continuous-wave laser excitation and innovatively applied to improve microscopic resolution down to λ/8. However, the nonlinearity was limited to the green-orange plasmonic band of gold nanosphere, and the underlying mechanism has not yet been fully understood. In this work, we demonstrated that nonlinear scattering exists for various material/geometry combinations, thus expanding the applicable wavelength range. For near-infrared, gold nanorod is used, while for blue-violet, silver nanospheres are adopted. In terms of mechanism, the nonlinearity may originate from interband/intraband absorption, hot electron, or hot lattice, which are spectrally mixed in the case of gold nanosphere. For gold nanorod and silver nanosphere, nonlinear scattering occurs at plasmonic resonances, which are spectrally far from interband/intraband absorptions, so they are excluded. We found that the nonlinear index is much larger than possible contributions from hot electrons in literature. Therefore, we conclude that hot lattice is the major mechanism. In addition, we propose that similar to z-scan, which is the standard method to characterize nonlinearity of a thin sample, laser scanning microscopy should be adopted as the standard method to characterize nonlinearity from a nanostructure. Our work not only provides the physical mechanism of the nonlinear scattering, but also paves the way toward multi-color superresolution imaging based on non-bleaching plasmonic scattering.

An exact calculation of the local electric field E(r) is described for the case of an external current or plane wave source in a setup of an E₁, μ₁ slab in an E₂, μ₂ medium. For this purpose we first calculate all the general eigenstates of the full Maxwell equations. These eigenstates are then used to develop an exact expansion for the physical values of E(r) in the system characterized by physical values of E₁, E₂, μ₁, and μ₂. Results are compared with those of a previous calculation of the local field where μ = 1 everywhere. Numerical results are shown for the eigenvalues in practically important configurations where attaining an optical image with sub-wavelength resolution has practical significance. We show that the k ≫ k₂ components are enhanced for the TM field when E₁/E₂ = −1 and for the TE field when μ₁/μ₂ = −1 where the enhancement of the evanescent waves starts from lower k values as we approach a setup with both E₁/E₂ = −1 and μ₁/μ₂ = −1. We also show that the eigenfunctions for the setup where μ = 1 everywhere correspond to configurations of 3D phased arrays.

In this work, we report on fabrication of deep-profile one- and two-dimensional lattices made from Al-doped ZnO (AZO). AZO is considered as an alternative plasmonic material having the real part of the permittivity negative in the near infrared range. The exact position of the plasma frequency of AZO is doping concentration dependent, allowing for tuning possibilities. In addition, the thickness of the AZO film also affects its material properties. Physical vapor deposition techniques typically applied for AZO coating do not enable deep profiling of a plasmonic structure. Using the atomic layer deposition technique, a highly conformal deposition method, allows us to fabricate high-aspect ratio structures such as one-dimensional lattices with a period of 400 nm and size of the lamina of 200 nm in width and 3 μm in depth. Thus, our structures have an aspect ratio of 1:15 and are homogeneous on areas of 2×2 cm² and more. We also produce two-dimensional arrays of circular nanopillars with similar dimensions. Instead of nanopillars hollow tubes with a wall thickness on demand from 20 nm up to a complete fill can be fabricated.

We present experimental evidence of the generation of narrow Fano line shapes in planar multilayer structures. The Fano line shape originates from coupling between a high loss surface plasmon polariton mode with a low loss planar waveguide mode. The line shape is shown to depend strongly on the structural parameters that govern the position of the waveguide mode and the coupling strength, and to be in good agreement with results of electromagnetic calculations.

Nanotechnology has been developed for decades and many interesting optical properties have been demonstrated. However, the major hurdle for the further development of nanotechnology depends on finding economic ways to fabricate such nanostructures in large-scale. Here, we demonstrate how to achieve low-cost fabrication using nanosphere-related techniques, such as Nanosphere Lithography (NSL) and Nanospherical-Lens Lithography (NLL). NSL is a low-cost nano-fabrication technique that has the ability to fabricate nano-triangle arrays that cover a very large area. NLL is a very similar technique that uses polystyrene nanospheres to focus the incoming ultraviolet light and exposure the underlying photoresist (PR) layer. PR hole arrays form after developing. Metal nanodisk arrays can be fabricated following metal evaporation and lifting-off processes. Nanodisk or nano-ellipse arrays with various sizes and aspect ratios are routinely fabricated in our research group. We also demonstrate we can fabricate more complicated nanostructures, such as nanodisk oligomers, by combining several other key technologies such as angled exposure and deposition, we can modify these methods to obtain various metallic nanostructures. The metallic structures are of high fidelity and in large scale. The metallic nanostructures can be transformed into semiconductor nanostructures and be used in several green technology applications.

Subwavelength-sized, periodically arranged holes in an opaque metal film have gained much attention since 1998, when Ebbesen et al. first reported the phenomenon of enhanced transmission of light through such a hole-array structure. Certain wavelengths show distinctly higher transmission than what would be expected based simply on the number of holes and the transmission of a single subwavelength hole, a phenomenon commonly attributed to different plasmonic modes in nanohole arrays. Traditionally, nanoscale holes and slits in metal films have been fabricated via electron-beam lithography or focused ion beam milling. Typically, finite hole arrays up to 50 μm in size with high control over hole size, shape, periodicity and resolution can be created with these methods. However, EBL and FIB become very costly and time-consuming to make larger-sized hole arrays and are not suitable for low-cost mass production. Herein, we exploit surface patterns on azopolymer films for making highly ordered and uniform arrays of nanoholes and nanoislands in thin gold films. The nanostructures can be created by employing azopolymer surface patterns as a template for metal deposition, after which the metal surface is subjected to large-area ion milling. Azopolymer-based surface patterning provides an easy way to vary the size and periodicity of the structures, which are manufactured homogeneously over large areas. The largest possible size of the structures depends merely on the size of the optical inscription beam and the used ion milling apparatus.

Optical coatings have been referred as thin films that create interference effect to change optical properties of substrates. The most common applications of optical thin films are anti-reflection coatings, high reflective coatings, beamsplitter coatings, and bandpass filter coatings. In the recent development of metamaterials, the optical coatings also play a critical role in design, fabrication and measurement. In fabrication, glancing angle deposition has been applied to grow slanted metal nanorod arrays. The associated longitudinal plasmon and transverse plasmon modes under linear polarized illuminations are induced and generate anisotropic refractive index and extinction coefficient. Strong birefringence of a silver nanorod array reveals positive and negative real refractive indices exist for two orthogonal linear polarization states. Recently, negative index materials and hyperbolic metamaterials are realized as multilayers comprising subwavelength-scale metal and dielectric films alternatively. From the view of optical coatings, the design of optical edge filters can be applied to arrange the metal-dielectric multilayer as a symmetrical film sack to perform equivalent complex admittance and refractive index. On the other hand, the traditional admittance diagram used in design of antireflection and bandpass filters can be applied to induce the transmission of a negative index multilayer. The admittance loci of metal films are designed to be huge contours in the admittance diagram to reduce the energy loss in metal films. Five-layered symmetrical film stack and seven-layered symmetrical film stack are shown here to present as new bandpass filters with negative real refractive indices.

Hyperlens was already shown to facilitate the sub-diffraction imaging in the far-field by converting the sub-wavelength information carried by evanescent wave components into the propagating waves and magnifying those sub-wavelength details to the scales that can be resolved by conventional optical components. In this talk, we will discuss the case when the hyperlens is used in a reverse way, such that the incident light enters on the outer surface of the hyperlens and collected on the inner surface, the device may function as a de-magnifier. In particular, if a pattern of a large size (above the diffraction limit) is recorded on the outer surface serving as a mask, the sub-wavelength image can be achieved on the inner side of the hyperlens. While this idea was validated using numerical simulations, no experimental demonstration was reported to date. In this talk, we demonstrate de-magnifying hyperlens in laboratory experiments and discuss its potential applications. For example, one of such potential applications is sub-wavelength photolithography. Photolithography is the most widely used fabrication technique in integrated circuit industry. However, further decreasing the feature size becomes challenging, in particular, due to the diffraction limit. We experimentally show de-magnifying property of a spherical hyperlens composed of metal-dielectric multilayer structure with a Cr mask on its outer surface. A photoresist was spin-coated on the inner surface of the hyperlens to record the image. After exposure with 405nm light, the pattern on the mask was recorded in the photoresist on the inner surface of the hyperlens, demonstrating 1.6x de-magnification.

Plasmonic nanostructures have recently been shown to alter the photonic density of states and to provide opportunities to control semiconductor photophysical properties.1-4 Experimentally and theoretically,5 we investigated the effects of a range of hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) lamellar structures consisting of metal and dielectric multilayers on the photoluminescence (PL) lifetime of several organic chromophores which emission range from UV to visible. These molecules were immersed in a polymeric matrix spin-coated on top of the HMM substrates and streak camera measurements were completed to monitor the evolution of the chromophores spontaneous emission. The ratio of the PL lifetimes of chromophores located on top of HMM nanostructures and on top of fused silica was shown to vary in a non-monotonous way. We then showed that normalized PL lifetime of the chromophore strongly depends on the HMM phase and the number of metal-dielectric pairs. To analyze systematically this behavior and fully understand the involved mechanisms, we also developed a theoretical analysis and took advantage of both invariant imbedding method and FDTD simulation as computational tools to quantitatively explain the experimental results and predict the responses, which could be observed when varying further the HMM nanostructures. 1. M. A. Noginov, et al., Opt. Lett., 2010, 35, 1863. 2. T. U. Tumkur, , et al., Appl. Phys. Lett., 2012, 100, 161103. 3. P. Shekhar, , et al., Phys. Rev. B, 2014, 90, 045313. 4. H. N. Krishnamoorthy, , et al., Science, 2012, 336, 205. 5. K. J. Lee, , et al. In preparation, 2016.

Planar photonics, like metasurfaces and nanoantennas, got immense attention because of the ability controlling the flow of light. The tunability of metasurfaces system could be realized by combining with liquid crystals. In this work, several novel devices, like tunable nanoantennas array with color, diffraction control of binary gratings metasurfaces, and optical Tamm states would be presented. 1. By comparing different dimensions of nanoantennas, the anchoring energy of liquid crystal could be adjusted in nanoscale. The different shapes of nanoantennas show the difference in color or monotone change when applying different voltages. 2. The diffraction ratio of metasurface could be controlled by nematic liquid crystal by controlling the polarization direction by applying voltages. 3. Optical Tamm states could be realized and adjustable by combining liquid photonic crystal with metasurface. All of those ideas are realized in both modeling and experimental, which could give a great impact to the field of future application in tunable metasurfaces.

Upconversion fluorescence from Lanthanide-doped nanocrystals has attracted widespread interests because of its greatly potential applications in various fields, such as photonic crystal lasers, material science, biological therapy, and so on. However, the relatively low quantum yield (typically < 5%) is the major limitation for upconversion nanocrystals. Meanwhile, in addition to the chemical methods, plasmonic structures have been adopted as another strategy to improve the radiation efficiency and control the relaxation process of the upcovnersion nanocrystals. We designed the anti-symmetric split ring resonators with various periods and the fishnet structures. The surface plasmon resonance peaks of the structure shift as the periods varies. For example, in a multi-layered plamsonic metasurface with the period of 250nm, both the electric and magnetic modes could be generated simultaneously when excited by the incident light with proper polarization. This plasmonic structure provides two different channels for the enhancement of upconversion fluorescence. The resonance peak of 650nm is magnetic resonance mode, while the peak of 980nm is electric resonance mode. The resonance peak of 980nm coincides with the absorption band of the Lanthanide-dopoed nanocrystal, and the peak of 650nm matches with its emission band. We found that the upconversion fluorescence intensity could be enhanced more than 10 times when the electric resonance frequency of the metasurface matches with the absorption band of the upconversion nanocrystals, while the magnetic mode overlaps with its emission band. This is due to the local density of optical states was significantly enhanced by the plasmonic metasurface. The detailed results and mechanism will be discussed.

In the first part of this talk, I will show our experimental investigation on the linear and nonlinear optical properties of metal film-coupled nanosphere monomers and dimers both with nanometric gaps. We have developed a new methodology - polarization resolved spectral decomposition and color decoding to “visualizing” unambiguously the spectral and radiation properties of the complex plasmonic gap modes in these hybrid nanostructures. Single-particle spectroscopic measurements indicate that these hybrid nanostructures can simultaneously enhance several nonlinear optical processes, such as second harmonic generation, two-photon absorption induced luminescence, and hyper-Raman scattering. In the second part, I will show how the polarization state of the emissions from sub-10 nm upconversion nanocrystals (UCNCs) can be modulated when they form a hybrid complex with a gold nanorod (GNR). Our single-particle scattering experiments expose how an interplay between excitation polarization and GNR orientation gives rise to an extraordinary polarized nature of the upconversion emissions from an individual hybrid nanostructure. We support our results by numerical simulations and, using Förster resonance energy transfer theory, we uncover how an overlap between the UCNC emission and GNR extinction bands as well as the mutual orientation between emission and plasmonic dipoles jointly determine the polarization state of the UC emissions.

During the last decade, important attention has been devoted to the observation of nonlinear optical processes in plasmonic nanosystems, giving rise to a new field of research called nonlinear plasmonics. The cornerstone of nonlinear plasmonics is the use of the large field enhancement associated with the excitation of localized surface plasmon resonances to reach high nonlinear conversion yields. Among all the nonlinear optical processes, second harmonic generation (SHG), the process whereby two photons at the fundamental frequency are converted into one photon at the second harmonic frequency, is undoubtedly the most studied one due to the relative simplicity of its experimental observation. However, the physical origin of SHG from plasmonic nanostructures hides a lot of subtleties, which are mainly related to its particular behavior upon inversion symmetry. In order to catch all the peculiarities of SHG, it is mandatory to develop dedicated numerical methods able to accurately describe all the underlying physical processes and the influence of the initial assumptions needs to be well-characterized. In this presentation, we discuss and compare different methods (namely full-wave computations based on the surface integral equations method, mode analysis, the Miller’s rule, and the effective nonlinear susceptibility method) proposed for the evaluation of the SHG from plasmonic nanoparticles emphasizing their limitations and advantages. In particular, the design of double resonant antennas for efficient nonlinear conversion at the nanoscale is addressed in detail.

Although gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are promising probes for biological imaging because of their attracting optical properties and bio-friendly nature, properties of the multi-photon (MP) emission from GNP aggregates produced by a short-wave infrared (SWIR) laser have not been examined. In this paper, characterization of MP emission from aggregated 50 nm GNPs excited by a femtosecond (fs) laser at 1560 nm is discussed with respect to aggregate structures. The key technique in this work is single particle spectroscopy. A pattern matching technique is applied to correlate MP emission and SEM images, which includes an optimization processes to maximize cross correlation coefficients between a binary microscope image and a binary SEM image with respect to xy displacement, image rotation angle, and image magnification. Once optimization is completed, emission spots are matched to the SEM image, which clarifies GNP ordering and emission properties of each aggregate. Correlation results showed that GNP aggregates have stronger MP emission than single GNPs. By combining the pattern matching technique with spectroscopy, MP emission spectrum is characterized for each GNP aggregate. A broad spectrum in the visible region and near infrared (NIR) region is obtained from GNP dimers, unlike previously reported surface plasmon enhanced emission spectrum.

The surface plasmon resonances (SPR) of metallic layers and localized SPR of metallic nano-objects have been extensively investigated during the last decade, opening the way to development of optical plasmon-based devices. As SPRs are associated to electromagnetic local field enhancement, they also lead to enhancement of the system optical nonlinearity, which can be exploited to investigate fundamental processes at nanoscale (e.g., electron and lattice kinetics), and for designing active plasmonic devices. Understanding and modelling the optical nonlinearities of plasmonic systems are thus of both fundamental and technological interests. With the advance of single nanoparticle spectroscopy methods, the nonlinear optical response of a single nano-object can now be addressed, which, associated to determination of its morphology by electron microscopy, opens the way to detailed modeling of the optical nonlinearity of metallic confined system. In this context we discuss experimental and theoretical investigations of the ultrafast response of individual model metallic nano-objects, either formed by a single particle or by two interacting particles at a nanometric distance (Fano resonance regime). The results show that their specific third–order nonlinear response can be fully associated to enhancement of the bulk metal nonlinear response by plasmonic effects. This paves the way toward quantitative modelling of ultrafast active plasmonic, and investigation of energy and charge exchanges in multi-material nano-objects by ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy.

A two-photon photoemission microscopy experiment with femtosecond time-resolution for imaging of propagating surface plasmon polaritons is discussed. The experimental setup of an actively Pancharatnam’s phase stabilized interferometer is described, and a temporal stability in time-resolved two-photon photoemission microscopy of less than 20 attoseconds is demonstrated. The time-resolved setup is applied to investigate the interaction of a surface plasmon polariton wave packet with a plasmonic beam-splitter. Pump-probe data recorded at times before and after the interaction of the surface plasmon polariton wave packet with the beam-splitter indicate transmission and reflection coefficients of T≈0.3 and R≈0.4, respectively.

Tamm plasmon-polaritons (TPPs) have attracted many interest due to the peculiarities of their optical properties. TPPs are optical surface states, which can be excited at the boundary of distributed Bragg reflector and metal film. Like in case of surface plasmon-polaritons or surface electromagnetic waves excitation, the emergence of the TPP leads to the localization of the electromagnetic field near the DBR/metal interface. Experimentally, TPP can be detected by a narrow resonance in reflectance or transmittance spectrum of the DBR/metal structure. Tamm plasmon-polaritons were proposed to be used in several types of novel optical elements, such as sensors and lasers. It was also shown that TPPs can be effectively coupled with other localized states like surface plasmons and microcavity modes. In this contribution the direct measurements of the Tamm plasmon-polariton relaxation dynamics are presented. The lifetime of the TPP in one-dimensional photonic crystal is estimated experimentally and compared to the results of numerical calculations. The dependence of the lifetime on the angle of incidence and duration of the incident pulse is supported by numerical studies performed with the finite difference time-domain technique.

Transient absorption spectra were measured to demonstrate carrier injection in multi-layered stacks of Au nanoparticles sandwiched in between TiO2 atomic layer deposited (ALD) thin films. Similar structures were fabricated with ALD Al2O3 for control samples. Sub-percolation thin films of Au resulted in <20 nm particles with plasmon resonances at ~650 nm (~590 nm) in the TiO2 (Al2O3) samples. Two separate pump-probe experiments were preformed to monitor transient heating of the metal and carrier injection in the TiO2. In the first experiment, the metal nanoparticles were excited at 400 nm, and the metal electron dynamics were probed at wavelengths around the plasmon resonance. We measured a decay time of ~1.7 ps in the TiO2-Au layered samples compared to ~2.2 ps in the Al2O3-Au layered samples. The decay times are attributed to electron-phonon coupling. The faster decay in TiO2 may be the result of charge injection into the TiO2. In the second experiment, carriers were excited in the Au nanoparticles by pumping on the plasmon resonance, and the system was probed in the mid-IR to measure free carrier absorption in the TiO2. The TiO2-Au layered sample exhibited transient signals similar to the free carrier absorption signals following excitation of TiO2 films, however, no signal was observed on the Al2O3-Au layered sample. This provides clear evidence that the signal measured in the TiO2-Au layered sample was not from the Au nanoparticles alone but instead originated from charge injection from the Au into the TiO2.

Plasmonic structures are attractive due to their optical properties in the near-field and far-field. In the near-field, the enhanced field they generated strongly interacts with materials in proximity to the surface and even produces the quantum hybrid states in the strong coupling regime. In the far-field, the larger scattering cross section of plasmonic particles provides better contrast for tissue imaging. In addition, the strong absorption can generate substantial amount of heat for cancer cell elimination. These optical properties are usually engineered through tuning the size and morphology of individual nanoparticles by various chemical synthesis methods. The alternative way is to use coupled structure based on existing particles. The molecule-linked structure is a common way for 3D plasmonic materials. However, to produce a stable coupled structure in the solution phase is challenging. The formation of linkage between linker molecules is usually time-consuming and at low efficiency. Increasing the concentration of linker molecules may raise the reaction speed but also result in the random aggregation of particles. In this work, a polyelectrolyte coating is used to connect spherical nanoparticles of different sizes to form core-satellite assemblies (CSA). The coupled core-satellite structure is formed almost immediately after the solutions of two particles are mixed. The output efficiency is nearly 100%. The CSA is robust under the additional silica shell coating and strong laser illumination. The stability of this CSA is confirmed by the Raman spectra and this assembly can potentially be used as Raman tags.

In this work, a 2D metallic nano-trench array was fabricated on gold metal surface by using an e-beam lithography patterning and etching process. Optical reflectance from the device was measured at oblique angles of incidence for TE and TM polarization. Near perfect light trapping was observed at different wavelengths for TE and TM polarization at oblique angle of incidence. As angle of incidence increases, light trapping wavelength has a red-shift for TM polarization and blue shift for TE polarization. The fabricated nano-trench device was also investigated for chemical sensor application. It was found that by varying the angle of incidence, the sensitivity changes with opposite trends for TE and TM polarization. Sensor sensitivity increases for TM polarization and decreases for TE polarization with increase of the oblique incident angle.

Photoemission electron microscopy (PEEM) is an attractive and advantageous technique in the field of plasmonics. Whilst surface plasmons are excited at the metal dielectric interface by light, it is the near-field photoelectron distribution that is imaged, with <40 nm resolution, and thereby the optical diffraction limit is overcome. Additionally parallel acquisitioning makes time-resolved (TR) PEEM1 possible. PEEM therefore allows us to investigate light-matter interactions in localized, propagating and hybridized surface plasmons leading to advances in fundamental research and technological applications. In addition to near-field imaging it is also possible to perform near-field spectroscopy. A tunable short pulse optical parametric oscillator (OPO) light source can be combined with PEEM. We demonstrate this technique with arrays of whispering gallery mode (WGM) cavities2 fabricated with focused ion beam milling (FIB) on gold surfaces. Characteristic spectral peaks and near-field mode distributions result from the coherent excitation of different plasmon resonances. This near-field interference of modes allows us to control the emission from these WGM cavities3. Additionally recent advances in ultrafast near-field microscopy and spectroscopy will be discussed. [1] M. Bauer, C. Wiemann, J. Lange, D. Bayer, M. Rohmer and M. Aeschlimann, Appl. Phys. A 88 473 (2007) [2] E. J. Vesseur, F. J. García de Abajo and A. Polman Nano Letters 9 3147 (2009) [3] P. Melchior, D. Kilbane, E. J. Vesseur, A. Polman and M. Aeschlimann Optics Express 23, 31619 (2015)

Pushing the resolution limit of the optical microscope beyond 100 nm is revolutionary in the field of super-resolution imaging. It has been demonstrated that when a dielectric transparent microsphere at a diameter of a few microns is located between the sample and objective lens, its resolution can be enhanced. In this talk, both contact and non-contact modes of the microsphere optical super-resolution imaging are presented. In the contact mode, where the microsphere is in touch with the sample surface, fine features with the size of 38 nm can be observed. However, the contact mode has a critical drawback that the relative location of the microsphere and sample cannot be adjusted, thus limiting the imaging field and contaminating the sample surface. To address this issue, a non-contact scanning mode of the microsphere super-resolution imaging is developed by attaching the high refractive index microsphere onto thin glass substrate and control the movement of the microsphere by a nano-stage. The gap between the sample and microsphere is around a few microns in the oil immersion condition. Features with the size of 75 nm can be observed by the non-contact scanning mode of the microsphere under a conventional optical microscope. The resolution is expected to be higher when the microsphere is engineered with micron size structures on the surface.

Optical biosensing based on gold nanoparticles supporting localized surface plasmoncs (LSPR) potentially offers great opportunities for compact, sensitive and low cost diagnostic devices. While last two decades have witnessed a diversity of nanoplasmonic systems with outstanding sensitivity, the implementation of LSPR sensing into a real analytical device is only at its infancy. In this context, we present here our latest advances in the optical, label free detection of biomolecules based on gold nanoantennas integrated into a state-of-the-art microfluidic platform. We first demonstrate the capability of our platform to detect low concentrations (<1ng/ml) of protein cancer markers in human serum with low unspecific binding and high repeatability. In a second step we present a novel design that enables to simultaneously determine the absolute concentration of four different target molecules from an unknown sample. The system is validated in the context of breast cancer, as a strategy to assess the risk for brain metastasis. In the final part of the paper we discuss the use of LSPR sensing for the detection of other targets, including DNA and exosomes. Our research demonstrates the high potential of gold nanoparticles for the detection of different biomarkers in real biological samples and thus gets us closer to future LSPR-based point-of-care devices.

We have realized a plasmonic sensor based on Au/Pd metal bilayer in a multimode plastic optical fiber. This metal bilayer, based on a metal with high imaginary part of the refractive index and gold, shows interesting properties in terms of sensitivity and performances, in different refractive index ranges. The development of highly sensitive platforms for high refractive index detection (higher than 1.38) is interesting for chemical applications based on molecularly imprinted polymer as receptors, while the aqueous medium is the refractive index range of biosensors based on bio–receptors. In this work we have presented an Au/Pd metal bilayer optimized for 1.38-1.42 refractive index range.

Many nanophotonic systems are strongly coupled to radiating waves, or suffer significant dissipative losses. Furthermore, they may have complex shapes which are not amenable to closed form calculations. This makes it challenging to determine their modes without resorting to quasi-static or point dipole approximations. To solve this problem, the quasi-normal modes (QNMs) are found from an integral equation model of the particle. These give complex frequencies where excitation can be supported without any incident field. The corresponding eigenvectors yield the modal distributions, which are non-orthogonal due to the non-Hermitian nature of the system. The model based on quasi-normal modes is applied to plasmonic and dielectric particles, and compared with a spherical multipole decomposition. Only with the QNMs is it possible to resolve all features of the extinction spectrum, as each peak in the spectrum can be attributed to a particular mode. In contrast, many of the multipole coefficient have multiple peaks and dips. Furthermore, by performing a multipolar decomposition of each QNM, the spectrum of multipole coefficients is explained in terms of destructive interference between modes of the same multipole order.

Thin films of hydrogenated amorphous silicon were grown on cover glasses by PECVD in an Oxford PlasmaLab System 100. The thickness of the films and their linear optical properties were characterized by J.A. Woollam Co. Spectroscopic Ellipsometer M-2000D. The follow-up procedure was to spin coat the negative tone ma-N 2403 electron-beam resist over the film, and expose the resist using an electron-beam lithography system (Raith 150). The exposed film was developed and brought to the reactive ion etching facility. We performed conventional apertureless z-scan and I-scan measurements. A train of femtosecond laser pulses form a Coherent Micra 5 laser with an output mean power of 250 mW passed through a precompressor for a negative chirp. A thin-film nanoparticle polarizer (ThorLabs LPVIS050) and a Glan laser-grade polarizer were used to adjust the fluence values in the range of 0.1–10 mJ/cm2. For the pump-probe measurements, a train of femtosecond laser pulses form the laser passed through a pre-compressor for a negative chirp. The pulses were split into two; the resulting mean power values of pump and probe beams at the sample site were approximately 40 mW and 1.5 mW, respectively. The pulses were measured to have 45 fs intensity autocorrelation FHWM duration, and a spectral FWHM width of 19 nm, resulting in a time-bandwidth product of 0.4. Focusing through a silica lens pair achieved waists of roughly 30 μm in diameter, resulting in modest pump fluence values of approximately 30 μJ/cm2, a pump pulse energy of 0.25 nJ, and per-disk deposited energy of 13 fJ. The third-harmonic generation experiment description can be found as the supplementary information of the following publication: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl503029j

Control of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) excited on metal nanostructures has drawn attention for applications in dynamic switching of plasmonic devices. As a reversible active media for LSPR control, chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs) such as GeSbTe (GST) are promising for high-contrast robust plasmonic switching. Owing to the plasticity and the threshold behavior during both amorphization and crystallization of PCMs, PCM-based LSPR switching elements possess a dual functionality of memory and processing. Integration of LSPR switching elements so that they interact with each other will allow us to build non-von-Neumann computing devices. As a specific demonstration, we discuss the implementation of a cellular automata (CA) algorithm into interacting LSPR switching elements. In the model we propose, PCM cells, which can be in one of two states (amorphous and crystalline), interact with each other by being linked by a AuNR, whose LSPR peak wavelength is determined by the phase of PCM cells on the both sides. The CA program proceeds by irradiating with a light pulse train. The local rule set is defined by the temperature rise in the PCM cells induced by the LSPR of the AuNR, which is subject to the intensity and wavelength of the irradiating pulse. We also investigate the possibility of solving a problem analogous to the spin-glass problem by using a coupled dipole system, in which the individual coupling strengths can be modified to optimize the system so that the exact solution can be easily reached. For this algorithm, we propose an implementation based on an idea that coupled plasmon particles can create long-range spatial correlations, and the interaction of this with a phase-change material allows the coupling strength to be modified.

We present second-order nonlinear optical properties of two-dimensional periodic arrays of Au nanorods arranged two dimensionally on SiO2 along with the one-dimensional periodic arrays in the direction either coaxial or vertical to the plasmon polarizations. The geometry of the nanorods was symmetric with respect to the normal line to the top surface of the rods, and the system was excited at oblique incidence angles so as to break the centro-symmetry. Our experimental results demonstrated that the coordination longitudinal to plasmon polarizations reduced the nonlinearities of the nanorods while the coordination transverse to polarizations did not give any significant influences on them.

We manufactured an array of three angstrom-wide, five millimeter-long van der Waals gaps of copper-graphene-copper composite, in which unprecedented nonlinearity was observed. To probe and manipulate van der Waals gaps with long wavelength electromagnetic waves such as terahertz waves, one is required to fabricate vertically oriented van der Waals gaps sandwiched between two metal planes with an infinite length in the sense of being much larger than any of the wavelengths used. By comparison with the simple vertical stacking of metal-graphene-metal structure, in our structure, background signals are completely blocked enabling all the light to squeeze through the gap without any strays. When the angstrom-sized van der Waals gaps are irradiated with intense terahertz pulses, the transient voltage across the gap reaches up to 5 V with saturation, sufficiently strong to deform the quantum barrier of angstrom gaps. The large transient potential difference across the gap facilitates electron tunneling through the quantum barrier, blocking terahertz waves completely. This negative feedback of electron tunneling leads to colossal nonlinear optical response, a 97% decrease in the normalized transmittance. Our technology for infinitely long van der Waals gaps can be utilized for other atomically thin materials than single layer graphene, enabling linear and nonlinear angstrom optics in a broad spectral range.

The combination of graphene’s intrinsically-high nonlinear optical response with its ability to support long-lived, electrically tunable plasmons that couple strongly with light has generated great expectations for application of the atomically-thin material to nanophotonic devices. These expectations are mainly reinforced by classical analyses performed using the response derived from extended graphene, neglecting finite-size and nonlocal effects that become important when the carbon layer is structured on the nanometer scale in actual device designs. Based on a quantum-mechanical description of graphene using tight-binding electronic states combined with the random-phase approximation, we show that finite-size effects produce large contributions that increase the nonlinear response associated with plasmons in nanostructured graphene to significantly higher levels than previously thought, particularly in the case of Kerr-type optical nonlinearities. Motivated by this finding, we discuss and compare saturable absorption in extended and nanostructured graphene, with or without plasmonic enhancement, within the context of passive mode-locking for ultrafast lasers. We also explore the possibility of high-harmonic generation in doped graphene nanoribbons and nanoislands, where illumination by an infrared pulse of moderate intensity, tuned to a plasmon resonance, is predicted to generate light at harmonics of order 13 or higher, extending over the visible and UV regimes. Our atomistic description of graphene’s nonlinear optical response reveals its complex nature in both extended and nanostructured systems, while further supporting the exceptional potential of this material for nonlinear nanophotonic devices.

The mid-infrared (mid-IR) region of the electromagnetic spectrum has a range of applications in defense, sensing, and free space optical communications. However, most mid-IR sources, particularly incoherent emitters, are practically limited as a result of significant non-radiative losses such as Auger and Shockley-Read-Hall recombination as well as phonon-assisted scattering. Recently, plasmonic materials have been a topic of interest due to their ability to overcome traditional limitations of light confinement as well as enhance light-matter interactions. For inherently inefficient sources, such as many mid-IR emitters, coupling of the emitting element to a plasmonic structure could enhance emission efficiency. In this work, we propose and experimentally evaluate the use of plasmon-mediated photoluminescence as a potential method for improving efficiency in mid-IR emitters. We assess the effectiveness of 3% gallium-doped zinc oxide (G3ZO) as a mid-IR plasmonic material. We design, simulate, fabricate, and characterize a two-dimensional periodic array of bow-tie nanoantennas (nantennas). Our structures are designed to enhance the overlap of the nantenna optical field with underlying In(Ga)Sb/InAs quantum well structures emitting at λ ≈ 4.0μm. Thin films of G3ZO are grown by pulsed laser deposition and are characterized electrically and optically, with the extracted material parameters used as inputs in our simulations. G3ZO plasmonic nantennas are then fabricated by electron-beam lithography and dry-etching. The spectral response of the patterned nantennas is characterized using Fourier transform infrared reflection spectroscopy. Samples are then characterized by temperature and polarization dependent photoluminescence spectroscopy in order to determine the extent to which the emission efficiency improves as a result of coupling to the nanostructures.

All-optical modulation of light using metallic nanostructures can potentially enable processing of information with speed in the terahertz range. This is because the optical nonlinearity of metals dictated by the electron-phonon coupling is intrinsically fast. Nobel metals have achieved great success to this end due to their superior plasmonic properties in the visible. However, each type of noble metals only works in a specific wavelength range and therefore broadband spectral response covering the wide visible spectrum can be a challenge. Here we introduce indium-tin-oxide nanorod arrays (ITO-NRAs) which exhibit broadband response covering the visible spectrum. We show that the static spectral response of ITO-NRAs does not depend on the incident polarization and is insensitive to whether the lattice is a square or a rectangle. We further demonstrate that the transmission spectrum can be slightly shifted by changing the sample temperature, as well as adjusting the doping concentration which can be achieved by annealing the sample in oxygen rich environments. When pumped by an optical pulse with photon energy above the bandgap, the transmission can be modified in the entire visible range. These preliminary results show that ITONRAs offer unique opportunities for all-optical modulation in optical frequencies.

Topological invariant plays a more and more important role in modern physics with the discovery of new materials such as topological insulators. The concept of momentum space topology has also been extended to various photonic systems to realize interesting applications. In this work, a plasmonic interface state is introduced between a photonic crystal and a metasurface which is protected by the Z2 topological mirror symmetry of the photonic crystals. Here we propose a scheme to experimentally measure the topological phase in a photonic system. Using reflection spectrum measurement, we determined the existence of interface states in the gaps, and then obtained the Zak phases. The interface state is excited when the reflection phase matching condition is satisfied. The reflection phase of metasurface can be tuned by changing the structural parameter. The resonance properties of interface state can be manipulated in the process. By manipulating the anisotropic property of the metasurface, we can further tune the polarization of the interface state. Field enhancement induced by the interface state will have important applications in nonlinear and quantum optics.

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) have found numerous applications in photonics, but traditional devices to excite them (such as grating and prism couplers) all suffer inherent low-efficiency issues, since the generated SPPs can decouple back to free space and the reflection at the device surface can never be avoided. Here, based on a transparent gradient metasurface, we propose a new SPP-excitation scheme and numerically demonstrate that it exhibits inherently high efficiency ( 94%), since the designed meta-coupler kills both the decoupling and the reflection at its surface. As a proof of concept, we fabricate a meta-coupler in the microwave regime, and combine near- and far-field experiments to demonstrate that the achieved SPP-excitation efficiency reaches 75%, which is several times higher than all other available devices. Our findings can inspire the designs and realizations of high-performance plasmonic devices to harvest light-matter interactions.

Previous experiments have shown that surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) preserve their entangled state and do not cause measurable decoherence. However, essentially all of them were done using SPPs whose dispersion was in the linear “photon-like” regime. We report in this presentation on experiments showing how transition to “true-plasmon” non-linear dispersion regime, which occurs near SPP resonance frequency, will affect quantum coherent properties of light. To generate a polarization-entangled state we utilize type-I parametric down-conversion, occurring in a pair of non-linear crystals (BiBO), glued together and rotated by 90 degrees with respect to each other. For state projection measurements, we use a pair of polarizers and single-photon avalanche diode coincidence count detectors. We interpose a plasmonic hole array in the path of down-converted light before the polarizer. Without the hole array, we measure visibility V=99-100% and Bell’s number S=2.81±0.03. To study geometrical effects we fabricated plasmonic hole arrays (gold on optically polished glass) with elliptical holes (axes are 190nm and 240nm) using focused ion beam. When we put this sample in our system we measured the reduction of visibility V=86±5% using entangled light. However, measurement using classical light gave exactly the same visibility; hence, this reduction is caused only by the difference in transmission coefficients of different polarizations. As samples with non-linear dispersion we fabricated two-layer (a-Si - Au) and three-layer (a-Si – Au – a-Si) structures on optically polished glass with different pitches and circular holes. The results of measurements with these samples will be discussed along with the theoretical investigations.

We present a numerical study of the interaction of light with isolated nanoparticles of various symmetry shapes described by the Gielis superformula as well as nanoparticle arrays composed from them. Using the discrete dipole approximation and finite element numerical methods the effects of particle shape symmetry on the spectral properties of gold and silver nanoparticles were investigated. Starting from the spherical and cylindrical geometries and progressing to star-like polygonal shapes, we demonstrate that the variation of the symmetry can significantly enhance the strength of the dipolar resonance and shift the resonance to the red spectral range by hundreds of nanometres. Thus, is possible to tune the optical properties of the nanostructures all across the visible spectral range only by changing their shapes. Finally, we investigate the collective resonances of arrays of interacting nanoparticles of different shapes, elucidating the role of the particle symmetry in the collective response.

Circularly polarized light and chiroptical effect have received considerable attention in advanced photonic and electronic technologies including optical spintronics, quantum-based optical information processing and communication, and high-efficiency liquid crystal display backlights. Moreover, the development of circularly polarized photon sources has played a major role in circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, which is important for analyses of optically active molecules, chiral synthesis in biology and chemistry, and ultrafast magnetization control. However, the conventional collocation of light-emitting devices and additional circular-polarization converters that produce circularly polarized beams makes the setup bulky and hardly compatible with nanophotonic devices in ultrasmall scales. In fact, the direct generation of circularly polarized photons may simplify the system integration, compact the setup, lower the cost of external components, and perhaps enhance the power efficiency. In this work, with the spiral-type metal-gallium nitride (GaN) nanowire cavity, we demonstrated an ultrasmall semiconductor laser capable of emitting circularly-polarized photons. The left- and right-hand spiral metal nanowire cavities with varied periods were designed at ultraviolet wavelengths to achieve the high quality factor circular dichroism metastructures. The dissymmetry factors characterizing the degrees of circular polarizations of the left- and right-hand chiral lasers were 1.4 and −1.6 (2 if perfectly circular polarized), respectively. The results show that the chiral cavities with only 5 spiral periods can achieve lasing signals with decently high degrees of circular polarizations.

The prediction of plasmonic laser (spaser) and its experimental realization in various systems have been among the highlights in the rapidly developing field of plasmonics during the past decade. First observed in gold nanoparticles (NP) coated by dye-doped dielectric shells spasing action was reported in hybrid plasmonic waveguides, semiconductor quantum dots on metal film, plasmonic nanocavities and nanocavity arrays, metallic NP and nanorods, and recently was studied in graphene-based structures. The small spaser size well below the diffraction limit gives rise to numerous promising applications, e.g., in sensing or medical diagnostics. However, most experimental realizations of spaser-based nanolasers were carried in relatively large systems, while only a handful of experiments reported spasing action in small systems with overall size below 50 nm. In this work, we perform a numerical study of the role of quenching and direct interactions between gain molecules in reaching the lasing threshold for small spherical NP with metal core and dye-doped dielectric shell. We use a semiclassical approach that combines Maxwell-Bloch equations with the Green function formalism to derive the threshold condition in terms of exact system eigenstates, which we find numerically. We show that for a large number of gain molecules needed to satisfy loss compensation condition, the coupling to nonresonant modes plays no significant role. In contrast, the direct dipole-dipole interactions, by causing random shifts in gain molecules' excitation energies, can hinder reaching the lasing threshold in small NP-based spasers.

Plasmon resonances in metallic nanoparticles result in enhanced light absorption and hot carrier generation. Although hot carriers are short-lived, their energy can be extracted in optical form resulting in photon upconversion. Two low energy photons absorbed by a plasmonic nanostructure, create a hot electron and a hot hole. These hot carriers get injected into an adjacent semiconductor quantum well where they radiatively recombine to emit a higher energy photon resulting in photon upconversion. This process involves injection of an electron and a hole across the same interface making it charge neutral. The upconversion emission has a linear dependence on the incident light intensity, making it promising for applications requiring low power operation. Theoretical studies show that a silver/semiconductor system can have an ideal efficiency of 25%. Our experimental demonstration of this new scheme utilizes GaN/InGaN quantum wells decorated with both silver and gold. The use of two metals reduces band-bending in the semiconductor. Illuminating the sample with light spanning wavelengths of 500-540 nm produces upconversion photoluminescence centered at 435 nm. Control samples including undecorated quantum wells and metal nanostructures on a glass substrate do not show any upconversion ruling out possibilities of upconversion in individual materials. Further, the linear dependence of the upconverted light intensity with incident intensity rules out any non-linear or Auger mediated mechanisms. We will describe how this hot carrier upconversion process promises to be broadband, tunable, and more efficient than existing solid-state upconversion schemes, and discuss potential applications in solar energy, security, and photodetection applications.

Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is a potential enabling technology for ultrahigh density data storage systems. In HAMR, a near-field transducer (NFT) delivers a subdiffraction heat spot to record bits of data on a high-anisotropy magnetic media. We developed an intuitive 1D Fourier model that expedites the analysis and design of the NFT. Among other strengths, the simple model predicts rather surprisingly and in agreement with 3D simulations, that for metallic nanoresonators the longitudinal component of the electric field dominates the heat transfer to the media. The proposed Fourier model serves well as a platform to study electromagnetic behavior such as field confinement and heat spot generation of 3D NFT designs.

It is well known that one can create a magnetic field by passing a DC or AC electric current through a coil of conductor (i.e., a wire); a phenomenon described by the Maxwell-Faraday’s law of electromagnetic induction. NMR or ESR (nuclear magnetic resonance or electron spin resonance) spectroscopies involve the interaction of a spin (nuclear or electron, respectively) with a magnetic field. Mathematically, these phenomena can be understood as the curl of the electric field (i.e., the current or spin) producing a (time varying) magnetic field or vise versa. Thus, one should also be able to induce a magnetic response in nano- and meso-scale materials by exploiting Maxwell-Faraday’s law of induction through the design of the structure, by employing an electric field with instantaneous curl or do both to produce an instantaneous circulating (or displacement) current. Here we employ cylindrical vector beams with azimuthal polarization to create an angular (cylindrical) electric field, and selectively induce a magnetic response in metal nanoparticle-based nanomaterials at optical frequencies. This time-varying magnetic field at optical frequencies is induced in systems that do not possess spin or orbital angular momentum. Moreover, with the vector beam spectroscopy we also selectively drive electric dipole modes by excitation with a radially polarized light, and show that the strength of the electric and magnetic modes can be equal in magnitude in individual metal nano-structures. This work opens new opportunities for selective spectroscopic investigation of “dark modes” and Fano resonances in nanomaterials, metamaterials and control of nanomaterial excitations and dynamics.

Is it possible to design a dedicated nanostructure on which all surface features contribute entirely to energy harvesting within a solar cell? This is an important challenge in the light that the efficiency of the solar cell technology utilised has a direct impact on the required land-use and also on reaching grid parity. Here, we take a unique approach and present an analytically derived optimum solution to the problem: a nanoscale metal topography, capable of significantly improving the efficiency of solid state solar cells via excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). The presented structure is designed to achieve broadband excitation of SPPs through the highest possible density of desired k-vectors at the interface. This leads to high weighted absorption enhancements (>130%) and unprecedented improvements (>30%) of solar cell external quantum efficiencies over the entire harvestable range.

The toroidal dipole moments of natural molecules are hard to be detected so the artificial toroidal materials made by metamaterial attract more attentions. Metamaterial, the sub-wavelength artificial structures, can modulate reflection or transmission of light. The toroidal metamaterial can not only amplify the toroidal moment but also repress the electric and magnetic dipole so it can be used to study the properties of toroidal dipole moment. However, there are many limitations for the experiments, such as the lateral light is necessary to excite the toroidal response. Most of the toroidal dipole moments oscillate perpendicularly to the substrate, therefore it is difficult to couple it with other dipole moments and could be only excited in the microwave region. In this paper, we design a toroidal metamaterial consisting of dumbbell-shaped aperture and vertical split ring resonator (VSRR) vertically. The toroidal dipole moment of our metamaterial is excited in the optical region. The arrangement of our nanostructures is vertical instead of planar annular arrangement to reduce the size of the unit cell and increase the density of the toroidal dipole moment. Moreover, the direction of toroidal dipole moment is parallel to the substrate which can be used for the study of the coupling effect with other kinds of dipolar moments.

Observing the resonance wavelengths of nanoantennas (NAs) with changing incident angles in TM and TE polarization. Extinction cross section shows the dark and bright coupling modes at resonance wavelength of NAs with symmetry breaking oblique incidence. The plasmonic enhancement is stronger under evanescent wave in total internal reflection.

We have numerically evaluated the complex valued eigenfrequencies of infinite silver nanotubes as a function of the ratio of internal and external radius, by solving the surface plasmon dispersion relations for the TE polarization. The results are shown for tubes of external radius of 20 nm, 50 nm, 100 nm, 150 nm, 200 nm and 300 nm with the internal radius varying from 0.1 to 0.9 fractions of the external radius. We have observed that their quality factor Q is substantially enhanced as compared to solid cylinders or wires.

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is drawing increasing interest in fields such as chemical and biomolecular sensing, nanoscale plasmonic engineering and surface science. In addition to the electromagnetic and chemical enhancements in SERS, several studies have reported a “back-side” enhancement when nanostructures are excited through a transparent base rather than directly through air. This additional enhancement has been attributed to a local increase in the electric field for propagation from high to low refractive index media. In this study, Mueller matrix ellipsometry was used to derive the effective optical constants of Ag nanostructures fabricated by thermal evaporation at oblique angles. The results confirm that the effective optical constants of the nanostructured Ag film depart substantially from the bulk properties. Detailed analysis suggests that the optical constants of the nano-island Ag structures exhibit uniaxial optical properties with the optical axis inclined from the substrate normal towards the deposition direction of the vapour flux. The substrates were functionalized with thiophenol and used to measure the wavelength dependence of the additional SERS signal. Further, a model based on the Fresnel equations was developed, using the Ag film optical constants and thickness as determined by ellipsometry. Both experimental data and the model show a significant additional enhancement in the back-side SERS, blue shifted from the plasmon resonance of the nanostructures. This information will be useful for a range of applications where it is necessary to understand the effective optical behaviour of thin films and in designing miniaturized optical fibre sensors for remote sensing applications.

Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) optical fiber sensors can be used as cost-effective small sized biosensors that are relatively simple to operate. Additionally, these instruments are label-free, hence rendering them highly sensitive to biological measurements. In this study, a three-channel microstructure optical fiber plasmonic-based portable biosensor is designed and analyzed using Finite Element Method. The proposed system is capable of determining changes in sample’s refractive index with precision of order one thousandth. The biosensor measures three absorption resonance wavelengths of the analytes simultaneously. This property is one of the main advantages of the proposed biosensor since it reduces the error in the measured wavelength and enhances the accuracy of the results up to 10^-5 m/RIU by reducing noise. In this paper, Jurkat cell, an indicator cell for leukemia cancer, is considered as the analyte; and its absorption resonance wavelengths as well as sensitivity in each channel are determined.

Over the last decade, plasmonic photothermal therapy (PPTT) has received significant attention as the new therapeutic strategy for the cancer therapy due to unique characteristics of the gold-nanoparticles. The characterization of the spatiotemporal heating potential for the gold nanorods (GNR) through mimicking PPTT process on the various conditions can help more quantitative approaches to treatment planning. The purpose of this study was to clearly understand the optical-thermal interactions between the laser, GNRs, and bio-tissues, and provide the information in clinical applications to implement the concept of heterogeneity, which can enable the optimization of treatment parameters for superficial breast cancer treatment.

Surface plasmons are known for their ability to provide large field enhancement at the interface between a metal and another medium. They can be observed in a variety of structures ranging from plain metallic films to nanoparticles and gratings. Thanks to their large electric field enhancement, surface plasmons have also been exploited for the enhancement of second and third harmonic generation. In fact, metals possess a relatively high third order susceptibility and, although dipole-allowed quadratic nonlinearities are not present in the bulk, they also display an effective second order response that arises from symmetry breaking at the surface, magnetic dipoles (Lorentz force), inner-core electrons, convective nonlinear sources, and electron gas pressure. While much attention has been devoted to achieve efficient excitation of surface plasmons to improve far-field harmonic generation, little or no attention has been paid to the dissipation of the generated harmonic light. Therefore, we undertake a discussion of both harmonic generation and absorption in simple metallic/dielectric interfaces with or without excitation of surface plasmons. We demonstrate that, despite the best efforts embarked upon to study plasmon excitation, the absorbed harmonic energy can far surpass the energy emitted in the far-field. These findings suggest that quantification of the absorbed harmonic light should be an important parameter in evaluating designs of plasmonic nanostructures for frequency mixing.

The interaction between plasmonic resonances, sharp modes, and light in nanoscale plasmonic systems often leads to Fano interference effects. This occurs because the plasmonic excitations are usually spectrally broad and the characteristic narrow asymmetric Fano line-shape results upon interaction with spectrally sharper modes. We investigate a plasmonic waveguide system using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, which consists of a metal-insulator-metal waveguide coupled with a rectangle and a ring cavity. Numerical simulations results show that the sharp and asymmetric Fano-line shapes can be created in the waveguide. Fano resonance strongly depends on the structural parameters. This has important applications in highly sensitive and multiparameter sensing in the complicated environments.

Because of the electromagnetic field enhancement effect in subwavelength scale, the surface plasmon wave (SPW) has been widely used in beam forming, bio-prospecting, and subwavelength structure design. But most research work is in the visible light or terahertz frequency band, and the surface plasmonic material (SPM) is usually limited to metals. In the microwave band, complex structures have to be used to achieve the desired subwavelength effects, making use of both metal and dielectric materials. In this paper, we propose the excitation of SPW in the microwave range using a simple structure and the material of indium tin oxide (ITO). By measuring the electric field profile during the propagation process, the excitation of SPW in ITO was verified. At the same time, frequency dependence was seen during the propagation process. Therefore, ITO can be a good SPM in the microwave band, just like metals in the visible light band. Considering the transparent characteristics of ITO, it can have many interesting applications.

In this work, we have studied the effect of AuGe alloy nanoparticles deposition on properties of molecular beam epitaxy grown heptalayer coupled InGaAs 5.25 mono-layer quantum-dots (QDs) samples. AuGe 12 nm film was deposited using electron beam evaporator on these samples which were later annealed at 300 °C to create AuGe nanoparticles. SEM measurement confirms formation of AuGe nanoparticles which support surface Plasmon modes. The PL spectra at 20K confirms maximum enhancement of 53% in intensity of peak at ̴̴ 1123 nm for 300 °C annealed sample in comparison to as-grown (without nanoparticle) sample. Single pixel detectors were fabricated from asgrown and 300°C annealed nanoparticle sample using two level lithography and wet etching process. We have observed two-order and one-order augmentation in responsivity and detectivity from device having nanoparticles compared to the as-grown respectively at 80K. Peak detectivity of 4.2×10⁷cm.Hz ^1/2/W at 80K was observed for device having nanoparticles. Around 30% increment in spectral response having peak around 5μm at -1V bias for device having AuGe nanoparticles compared to the as-grown device was observed. The observed enhancement is due to increase light trapping or light scattering into the device by nanoparticles. Demonstration of this plasmonic-based detector will move forward the development of high-performance infrared QDs detectors.

The optical fiber sensor for higher pressure detection based on surface-plasmon resonance (SPR) phenomena is design and analysed. The optical fiber is coated with a thin film of metal by removing cladding from core of a multi-mode optical fiber. The calculated pressure sensitivity is based on two parameter. First one is the derivative of the resonance wavelength of SPR-based optical sensor with respect to the refractive index of surrounding medium; the second is the derivative of refractive index of polymer with respect to the pressure. The proposed structure can be suitable for high sensitivity pressure measurements, for various industrial applications.

We present a strategy to control Fano resonances in hybrid graphene-silicon-on-insulator gratings. The presence of a mono- or few-layer graphene film allows to electrically and/or chemically tuning the Fano resonances that result from the interaction of narrow-band, quasi-normal modes and broad-band, Fabry-Perot-like modes. Transmission, reflection and absorption spectra undergo significant modulations under the application of a static voltage to the graphene film. In particular, for low values of the graphene chemical potential, the structure exhibits a symmetric Lorentzian resonance; when the chemical potential increases beyond a specific threshold, the grating resonance becomes Fano-like, hence narrower and asymmetric. This transition occurs when the graphene optical response changes from that of a lossy dielectric medium into that of a low-loss metal. Further increasing the chemical potential allows to blue-shift the Fano resonance, leaving its shape and linewidth virtually unaltered. We provide a thorough description of the underlying physics by resorting to the quasi-normal mode description of the resonant grating and retrieve perturbative expressions for the characteristic wavelength and linewidth of the resonance. The roles of number of graphene layers, waveguide-film thickness and graphene quality on the tuning abilities of the grating will be discussed. Although developed for infrared telecom wavelengths and silicon-on-insulator technology, the proposed structure can be easily designed for other wavelengths, including visible, far-infrared and terahertz, and other photonic platforms.

Extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) is a classic phenomenon in plasmonics. The study of plasmonic nanostructures in the ultraviolet (UV) is a relatively uncharted field due to challenges in both engineering (nanostructure design, optimization, and fabrication) and materials science (detailed composition analysis). Our previous research has been mainly focused on UV field enhancement ofdifferent Al nanostructures. In this work, two-dimensional periodic nanohole arrays in Aluminium (Al) and Magnesium (Mg) films were fabricated using Ga focused ion beam (FIB) lithography. Optical transmission through the arrays was obtained in the UV and visible range, with varying array periodicity. Transmission results showed strong resonance enhancement in the UV and visible region resulting from SPP coupling, with corresponding red-shift as the period increases, while waveguide mode peaks remain in place. Comparing Al and Mg EOT results, Al hole-array enabled larger transmission than that of Mg. Dips in transmission through Al arrays occur at similar spectral positions to those of Mg arrays with same periods. Numerical analysis was carried out through finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) method, which showed far-field transmission consistent with experiments in general. The model was constructed based on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) of cross-sectioned samples. The effect of Gallium (Ga) implantation from FIB fabrication was qualitatively studied, which indicated Ga implants inside the hole bottom as well as higher implantation within Mg than that within Al. The model also takes into account sidewall geometry and undercut into the substrate.

Ag and Cu nanoparticles supported in mordenite structure have been formed applying reduction temperatures in the range 100-400 C and varying Ag/Cu atomic ratios. Absorbance spectra of samples exhibit signature features consistent with absorption via localized surface plasmons propagating in metallic nanoparticles. The formation of binary Ag-Cu nanoparticles is inferred. Theoretical calculations within an average field Maxwell-Garnett model modified for a three component composite system are used to interpret resonance shifts and relative intensities of plasmon peaks in the experimental findings. Within the applied model the relative volume occupied by each metallic species can be changed. This permits the simulation of experimental conditions of the samples. It is experimentally found that the simultaneous presence of two metal species during the synthesis affects reduction temperatures, stability and relative concentration of embedded nanoparticles. Furthermore the observed optical spectra of the supported bimetallic nanoparticles is contrasted with that of single metal nanoparticles studied previously. Our study represents a contribution to the possibility of optical monitoring of synthetic pathways in zeolite + metal nanoparticle systems.

We analyze the resonant interaction between cumulus of nano-particles distributed on a two-dimensional array controlling the polarization states on the illumination, this allows controlling the dipole moment induced in a tunable-way obtaining an analytic expression for the refractive index. The resonant effects depend on the parameters that characterize the spatial distribution of the particle arrangement. We present two cases, firstly the interaction is described using a linear polarization on a linear particle array, and secondly it is obtained using circular polarization inducing resonant interaction between ring-particle kind structures. The refractive index associated to both configurations is implemented in the Fresnel equations for the study of the reflectivity and transmittance of optical fields. As a main result of the analysis is that we can to identify and control the parameters required for the synthesis of metamaterials. Computer simulations are presented.

In this work, we report the experimental and numerical study of second harmonic generation (SHG) from Si-surface with randomly distributed Au-nanorods. The dependence of plasmonic resonance frequency was studied numerically for the gold nanorod-silicon dioxide-silicon substrate system as a function of nanorod sizes and dioxide film thickness. The numerical results demonstrate a high sensitivity of plasmonic resonance on the silicon dioxide thickness at the range up to 6 nm. We measured experimentally the dependencies of second harmonic signal as functions of the polarization angle of the pump beam from randomly distributed Au-nanorods on the Si-surface.

Many of today’s technological applications, such as solar cells, light-emitting diodes, displays, and touch screens, require materials that are simultaneously optically transparent and electrically conducting. Here we explore transparent conductors based on the excitation of surface plasmons in nanostructured metal films. We measure both the optical and electrical properties of films perforated with nanometer-scale features and optimize the design parameters in order to maximize optical transmission without sacrificing electrical conductivity. We demonstrate that plasmonic transparent conductors can out-perform indium tin oxide in terms of both their transparency and their conductivity.

An optical setup able to switch between the surface-plasmon resonance (SPR) angular resolved spectroscopy in Kretschmann’s configuration and SPR imaging is presented. The system’s concept is based on an adaptive optical module which allows to perform the two complementary measurements by sharing all optical elements and avoiding any moving part. Among the main advantages given by this switching feature there are both the fast calibration capability of the SPR image by using the angular resolved spectroscopy and the optimization of the SPR chip probing area.

The phase function of optical fields collapse on focusing regions generating a discontinuity in the amplitude function, this induces sources or sinks that corresponds with the topological charge. When the previous comments are transferred to the Plasmon optics context, the discontinuity of the electromagnetic field generates a real distribution of electric charge. This distribution has associated a geometry which can be obtained from the boundary condition of the field. A dynamical character can be implemented on the charge distribution using partial coherence processes in the illumination configuration for the synthesis of the Plasmon field, generating local current distributions modifying selectively the electromagnetic field properties. The model is performed using as a prototype the interaction between plasmon fields Pearcey and Airy kind. Both of them have associated a catastrophe function to the phase function, this mathematical representation allows us to identify and quantify the discontinuity of the electromagnetic field. The computational simulations show that the charge/current distributions present non-linear effects, which offers applications for tunable spectroscopy, plasmonic tweezers, etc.