Temperature-Dependent Excitonic Light Manipulation with Atomically Thin Optical Elements.

Monolayer 2D semiconductors, such as WS, exhibit uniquely strong light-matter interactions due to exciton resonances that enable atomically thin optical elements. Similar to geometry-dependent plasmon and Mie resonances, these intrinsic material resonances offer coherent and tunable light scattering. Thus far, the impact of the excitons' temporal dynamics on the performance of such excitonic metasurfaces remains unexplored.

Off-axis metasurfaces for folded flat optics.

The overall size of an optical system is limited by the volume of the components and the internal optical path length. To reach the limits of miniaturization, it is possible to reduce both component volume and path length by combining the concepts of metasurface flat optics and folded optics. In addition to their subwavelength component thickness, metasurfaces enable bending conventional folded geometries off axis beyond the law of reflection.

Impact of substrates and quantum effects on exciton line shapes of 2D semiconductors at room temperature.

Exciton resonances in monolayer transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) provide exceptionally strong light-matter interaction at room temperature. Their spectral line shape is critical in the design of a myriad of optoelectronic devices, ranging from solar cells to quantum information processing. However, disorder resulting from static inhomogeneities and dynamical fluctuations can significantly impact the line shape.

Quantitative phase contrast imaging with a nonlocal angle-selective metasurface.

Phase contrast microscopy has played a central role in the development of modern biology, geology, and nanotechnology. It can visualize the structure of translucent objects that remains hidden in regular optical microscopes. The optical layout of a phase contrast microscope is based on a 4 f image processing setup and has essentially remained unchanged since its invention by Zernike in the early 1930s.

Non-local metasurfaces for spectrally decoupled wavefront manipulation and eye tracking.

Metasurface-based optical elements typically manipulate light waves by imparting space-variant changes in the amplitude and phase with a dense array of scattering nanostructures. The highly localized and low optical-quality-factor (Q) modes of nanostructures are beneficial for wavefront shaping as they afford quasi-local control over the electromagnetic fields. However, many emerging imaging, sensing, communication, display and nonlinear optics applications instead require flat, high-Q optical elements that provide substantial energy storage and a much higher degree of spectral control over the wavefront.

Nanoelectromechanical modulation of a strongly-coupled plasmonic dimer.

The ability of two nearly-touching plasmonic nanoparticles to squeeze light into a nanometer gap has provided a myriad of fundamental insights into light-matter interaction. In this work, we construct a nanoelectromechanical system (NEMS) that capitalizes on the unique, singular behavior that arises at sub-nanometer particle-spacings to create an electro-optical modulator. Using in situ electron energy loss spectroscopy in a transmission electron microscope, we map the spectral and spatial changes in the plasmonic modes as they hybridize and evolve from a weak to a strong coupling regime.

High quality factor phase gradient metasurfaces.

Dielectric microcavities with quality factors (Q-factors) in the thousands to billions markedly enhance light-matter interactions, with applications spanning high-efficiency on-chip lasing, frequency comb generation and modulation and sensitive molecular detection. However, as the dimensions of dielectric cavities are reduced to subwavelength scales, their resonant modes begin to scatter light into many spatial channels. Such enhanced scattering is a powerful tool for light manipulation, but also leads to high radiative loss rates and commensurately low Q-factors, generally of order ten.

Spectrally interleaved topologies using geometric phase metasurfaces.

Metasurfaces facilitate the interleaving of multiple topologies in an ultra-thin photonic system. Here, we report on the spectral interleaving of topological states of light using a geometric phase metasurface. We realize that a dielectric spectrally interleaved metasurface generates multiple interleaved vortex beams at different wavelengths.

Fabrication and near-field visualization of a wafer-scale dense plasmonic nanostructured array.

Developing a sensor that identifies and quantifies trace amounts of analyte molecules is crucially important for widespread applications, especially in the areas of chemical and biological detection. By non-invasively identifying the vibrational signatures of the target molecules, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has been widely employed as a tool for molecular detection. Here, we report on the reproducible fabrication of wafer-scale dense SERS arrays and single-nanogap level near-field imaging of these dense arrays under ambient conditions.

Switching of Photonic Crystal Lasers by Graphene.

Unique features of graphene have motivated the development of graphene-integrated photonic devices. In particular, the electrical tunability of graphene loss enables high-speed modulation of light and tuning of cavity resonances in graphene-integrated waveguides and cavities. However, efficient control of light emission such as lasing, using graphene, remains a challenge.

Resonant magneto-optic Kerr effects of a single Ni nanorod in the Mie scattering regime.

We present a systematic, theoretical investigation of the polar magneto-optical (MO) Kerr effects of a single Ni nanorod in the Mie regime. The MO Kerr rotation, ellipticity, amplitude ratio, and phase shift are calculated as a function of the length and width of the nanorod. The electric field amplitude ratio of the MO Kerr effect is locally maximized when the nanorod supports a plasmonic resonance in the polarization state orthogonal to the incident light.

Microstructured Air Cavities as High-Index Contrast Substrates with Strong Diffraction for Light-Emitting Diodes.

Two-dimensional high-index-contrast dielectric gratings exhibit unconventional transmission and reflection due to their morphologies. For light-emitting devices, these characteristics help guided modes defeat total internal reflections, thereby enhancing the outcoupling efficiency into an ambient medium. However, the outcoupling ability is typically impeded by the limited index contrast given by pattern media.

Sub-microWatt threshold nanoisland lasers.

Ultralow threshold nanolasers have been sought after as power efficient light sources in photonic integrated circuits. Here a single-cell nanobeam laser with a nanoisland quantum well is proposed and demonstrated. Continuous operation at 1.

Resonant light scattering from a single dielectric nano-antenna formed by electron beam-induced deposition.

Dielectric nano-antennas are promising elements in nanophotonics due to their low material loss and strong leaky-mode optical resonances. In particular, light scattering can be easily manipulated using dielectric nano-antennas. To take full advantage of dielectric nano-antennas and explore their new optical applications, it is necessary to fabricate three-dimensional nano-structures under arbitrary conditions such as in non-planar substrates.

Full three-dimensional power flow analysis of single-emitter-plasmonic-nanoantenna system.

We present a full three-dimensional (3D) power flow analysis of an emitter-nanoantenna system. A conventional analysis, based on the total Poynting vector, calculates only the coupling strength in terms of the Purcell enhancement. For a better understanding of the emitter-nanoantenna system, not only the Purcell enhancement but also complete information on the energy transfer channels is necessary.

Fast and bright spontaneous emission of Er(3+) ions in metallic nanocavity.

By confining light in a small cavity, the spontaneous emission rate of an emitter can be controlled via the Purcell effect. However, while Purcell factors as large as ∼10,000 have been predicted, actual reported values were in the range of about 10-30 only, leaving a huge gap between theory and experiment. Here we report on enhanced 1.

Plasmonic nano-comb structures for efficient large-area second harmonic generation.

We propose and demonstrate plasmonic nano-comb (PNC) structures for efficient large-area second-harmonic generation (SHG). The PNCs are made of 250 nm-thick gold film and have equally-spaced 30 nm-slits filled with ployvinylidene fluoride-co-trifluoroethylene (P(VDF-TrFE)). The PNC with 1.

Design of plasmonic nano-antenna for total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy.

We propose a gold modified bow-tie plasmonic nano-antenna, which can be suitably used in combination with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. The plasmonic nano-antenna, supporting well-separated multiple resonances, not only concentrates the total internal reflection evanescent field at the deep subwavelength scale, but also enhances fluorescence emission by the Purcell effect. Finite-difference time-domain computations show that the enhancement of the excitation light strongly correlates with the far-field radiation pattern radiated from the antenna.

Semiconducting [(Bi4Te4Br2)(Al2Cl(6-x)Br(x))]Cl2 and [Bi2Se2Br](AlCl4): cationic chalcogenide frameworks from Lewis acidic ionic liquids.

Lewis acidic organic ionic liquids provide a novel synthetic medium to prepare new semiconducting chalcogenides, [(Bi4Te4Br2)(Al2Cl5.46Br0.54)]Cl2 (1) and [Bi2Se2Br](AlCl4) (2).

CsSnI3: Semiconductor or metal? High electrical conductivity and strong near-infrared photoluminescence from a single material. High hole mobility and phase-transitions.

CsSnI(3) is an unusual perovskite that undergoes complex displacive and reconstructive phase transitions and exhibits near-infrared emission at room temperature. Experimental and theoretical studies of CsSnI(3) have been limited by the lack of detailed crystal structure characterization and chemical instability. Here we describe the synthesis of pure polymorphic crystals, the preparation of large crack-/bubble-free ingots, the refined single-crystal structures, and temperature-dependent charge transport and optical properties of CsSnI(3), coupled with ab initio first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations.

Optical recoil of asymmetric nano-optical antenna.

We propose nano-optical antennas with asymmetric radiation patterns as light-driven mechanical recoil force generators. Directional antennas are found to generate recoil force efficiently when driven in the spectral proximity of their resonances. It is also shown that the recoil force is equivalent to the Poynting vector integrated over a closed sphere containing the antenna structures.