Fabrication of multipoint side-firing optical fiber by laser micro-ablation.

A multipoint, side-firing design enables an optical fiber to output light at multiple desired locations along the fiber body. This provides advantages over traditional end-to-end fibers, especially in applications requiring fiber bundles such as brain stimulation or remote sensing. This Letter demonstrates that continuous wave (CW) laser micro-ablation can controllably create conical-shaped cavities, or side windows, for outputting light.

Monolithic NPG nanoparticles with large surface area, tunable plasmonics, and high-density internal hot-spots.

Plasmonic metal nanostructures have shown great potential in sensing, photovoltaics, imaging and biomedicine, principally due to the enhancement of local electric field by light-excited surface plasmons, i.e., collective oscillation of conduction band electrons.

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy with monolithic nanoporous gold disk substrates.

Monolithic hierarchical nanoporous gold disks, 500 nm in diameter, 75 nm in thickness and 3.5 nm in pore radius, have been fabricated by hybrid processes. A surface-enhanced Raman scattering enhancement factor of at least 10(8) has been obtained on individual disks using benzenethiol self-assembled monolayer with 785 nm laser excitation.

Effects of intermediate dielectric films on multilayer surface plasmon resonance behavior.

The effects of intermediate dielectric films on multilayer surface plasmon resonance (SPR) behavior were studied in terms of biosensing applications. Ten simple and complex oxides and fluoride, including MgF(2) and MgO, SiO(2), TiO(2) and complex PZT family dielectric materials, were evaluated. The materials cover a wide range of refractive indices, from 1.