Solution phase synthesis of indium gallium phosphide alloy nanowires.

The tunable physical and electronic structure of III-V semiconductor alloys renders them uniquely useful for a variety of applications, including biological imaging, transistors, and solar energy conversion. However, their fabrication typically requires complex gas phase instrumentation or growth from high-temperature melts, which consequently limits their prospects for widespread implementation. Furthermore, the need for lattice matched growth substrates in many cases confines the composition of the materials to a narrow range that can be epitaxially grown.

Remote multi-color excitation using femtosecond propagating surface plasmon polaritons in gold films.

We demonstrate dual-color nonlinear excitation of quantum dots positioned onto a gold film at distances up to 40 μm away from a micrometer sized focused laser spot. We attribute the observed remote nonlinear signal to the excitation of two independent surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes excited at the laser spot in the gold film, which subsequently propagate in a collinear fashion to a distant site and provide the surface field required for nonlinear excitation of the target. This scheme decouples the illuminating photon flux from surface plasmon mediated nonlinear excitation of the target, which provides more control of unwanted heating effects at the target site and represents an attractive approach for surface-mediated femtosecond nonlinear examinations of molecules.

Laser-induced scanning tunneling microscopy: Linear excitation of the junction plasmon.

We introduce the cross-polarized double-beat method for localized excitation of the junction plasmon of a scanning tunneling microscope with femtosecond laser pulses. We use two pulse trains derived from a Ti:sapphire laser operating at a repetition frequency of f(s)=76 MHz, with a relative shift between their carrier frequencies ω(a)/2π=f(s)+f(b) controlled with an acousto-optic modulator. The trains are cross-polarized and collinearly focused on the junction, ensuring constant radiation flux.