The Effect of Nanoparticle Composition on the Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering Performance of Plasmonic DNA Origami Nanoantennas.

A versatile generation of plasmonic nanoparticle dimers for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is presented by combining a DNA origami nanofork and spherical and nonspherical Au or Ag nanoparticles. Combining different nanoparticle species with a DNA origami nanofork to form DNA origami nanoantennas (DONAs), the plasmonic nanoparticle dimers can be optimized for a specific excitation wavelength in SERS. The preparation of such nanoparticle dimers is robust enough to enable the characterization of SERS intensities and SERS enhancement factors of dye-modified DONAs on a single dimer level by measuring in total several thousands of dimers from five different dimer designs, each functionalized with three different Raman reporter molecules and measured at four different excitation wavelengths.

Optical convolutional neural network with atomic nonlinearity.

Due to their high degree of parallelism, fast processing speeds and low power consumption, analog optical functional elements offer interesting routes for realizing neuromorphic computer hardware. For instance, convolutional neural networks lend themselves to analog optical implementations by exploiting the Fourier-transform characteristics of suitable designed optical setups. However, the efficient implementation of optical nonlinearities for such neural networks still represents challenges.

Nanostructured InSbTe antennas enable switching from sharp dielectric to broad plasmonic resonances.

Phase-change materials (PCMs) allow for non-volatile resonance tuning of nanophotonic components. Upon switching, they offer a large dielectric contrast between their amorphous and crystalline phases. The recently introduced "plasmonic PCM" InSbTe (IST) additionally features in its crystalline phase a sign change of its permittivity over a broad infrared spectral range.

Enhanced Faraday rotation by dielectric metasurfaces with Bayesian shape-optimized scatterers.

In this Letter, we demonstrate how to optimize the magneto-optic response of a Huygens metasurface composed of square arrays of all-dielectric nano-disk scatterers. We compare cylindrical and shape-modified disks. Both provide a strongly enhanced Faraday rotation that is accompanied by almost 100% transmittance.

Topological protection versus degree of entanglement of two-photon light in photonic topological insulators.

Topological insulators combine insulating properties in the bulk with scattering-free transport along edges, supporting dissipationless unidirectional energy and information flow even in the presence of defects and disorder. The feasibility of engineering quantum Hamiltonians with photonic tools, combined with the availability of entangled photons, raises the intriguing possibility of employing topologically protected entangled states in optical quantum computing and information processing. However, while two-photon states built as a product of two topologically protected single-photon states inherit full protection from their single-photon "parents", a high degree of non-separability may lead to rapid deterioration of the two-photon states after propagation through disorder.

On the applicability of quantum-optical concepts in strong-coupling nanophotonics.

Rooted in quantum optics and benefiting from its well-established foundations, strong coupling in nanophotonics has experienced increasing popularity in recent years. With nanophotonics being an experiment-driven field, the absence of appropriate theoretical methods to describe ground-breaking advances has often emerged as an important issue. To address this problem, the temptation to directly transfer and extend concepts already available from quantum optics is strong, even if a rigorous justification is not always available.

Dispersion control in a near-infrared subwavelength resonator with a tailored hyperbolic metamaterial.

We demonstrate experimentally and computationally an intricate cavity size dependence of the anomalous near-infrared mode spectrum of an ordinary optical resonator that is combined with a ZnO:Ga-based hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM). Specifically, we reveal the existence of a resonance in subwavelength-sized cavities and demonstrate control over the first-order cavity mode dispersion. We elaborate that these effects arise due to the HMM combining the mode dispersions of purely metallic and purely dielectric cavity cores into a distinct intermediate regime.

Importance of substrates for the visibility of "dark" plasmonic modes.

Dark plasmonic modes have interesting properties, including longer lifetimes and narrower linewidths than their radiative counterpart, and little to no radiative losses. However, they have not been extensively studied yet due to their optical inaccessibility. In this work, we systematically investigated the dark radial breathing modes (RBMs) in monocrystalline gold nanodisks, specifically their outcoupling behavior into the far-field by cathodoluminescence spectroscopy.

Broadband Spectrometer with Single-Photon Sensitivity Exploiting Tailored Disorder.

Harnessing tailored disorder for broadband light scattering enables high-resolution signal analysis in nanophotonic spectrometers with a small device footprint. Multiple scattering events in the disordered medium enhance the effective path length which leads to increased resolution. Here we demonstrate an on-chip random spectrometer cointegrated with superconducting single-photon detectors suitable for photon-scarce environments.

Negative asymmetry parameter in plasmonic core-shell nanoparticles.

Plasmonic nanoparticles with a dielectric-metal core-shell morphology exhibit hybridized modes where the surface plasmon polaritons at the outer and inner surfaces of the shell couple. We demonstrate that suitably tailoring the interference of such hybrid surface plasmon polariton modes leads to composite subwavelength nanospheres with negative asymmetry parameters and strong scattering in the optical frequency range. As a result, for a low density collection of scatterers an anomalous regime occurs, where the extinction mean free path is longer than the transport mean free path.

Quantization of Quasinormal Modes for Open Cavities and Plasmonic Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics.

We introduce a second quantization scheme based on quasinormal modes, which are the dissipative modes of leaky optical cavities and plasmonic resonators with complex eigenfrequencies. The theory enables the construction of multiplasmon or multiphoton Fock states for arbitrary three-dimensional dissipative resonators and gives a solid understanding to the limits of phenomenological dissipative Jaynes-Cummings models. In the general case, we show how different quasinormal modes interfere through an off-diagonal mode coupling and demonstrate how these results affect cavity-modified spontaneous emission.

Mid-infrared beam splitter for ultrashort pulses.

A design is presented for a beam splitter suitable for ultrashort pulses in the mid-infrared and terahertz spectral range consisting of a structured metal layer on a diamond substrate. Both the theory and experiment show that this beam splitter does not distort the temporal pulse shape.

Limitations of Particle-Based Spasers.

We present a semiclassical analytic model for spherical core-shell surface plasmon lasers. Within this model, we drop the widely used one-mode approximations in favor of fully electromagnetic Mie theory. This allows for incorporation of realistic gain relaxation rates that so far are massively underestimated.

Growth and characterization of SiGeSn quantum well photodiodes.

We report on the fabrication and electro-optical characterization of SiGeSn multi-quantum well PIN diodes. Two types of PIN diodes, in which two and four quantum wells with well and barrier thicknesses of 10 nm each are sandwiched between B- and Sb-doped Ge-regions, were fabricated as single-mesa devices, using a low-temperature fabrication process. We discuss measurements of the diode characteristics, optical responsivity and room-temperature electroluminescence and compare with theoretical predictions from band structure calculations.

Scanning single quantum emitter fluorescence lifetime imaging: quantitative analysis of the local density of photonic states.

Their intrinsic properties render single quantum systems as ideal tools for quantum enhanced sensing and microscopy. As an additional benefit, their size is typically on an atomic scale that enables sensing with very high spatial resolution. Here, we report on utilizing a single nitrogen vacancy center in nanodiamond for performing three-dimensional scanning-probe fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy.

Quantitative spectroscopy on individual wire, slot, bow-tie, rectangular, and square-shaped optical antennas.

By using a recently introduced approach combining a focus-modulation technique with a common-path interferometer, we measure quantitatively the extinction, scattering, and absorption cross-section spectra of individual optical antennas. The experimental results on thin-wire antennas, slot antennas, bow-tie antennas, rectangular antennas, and square-shaped antennas resonating at around 1.4 μm wavelength are discussed.

Correlated photons in one-dimensional waveguides.

We study two-photon transport in a one-dimensional waveguide with a side-coupled two-level system. Depending on the momentum of the incoming photons, we find that the nature of the scattering process changes considerably. We further show that bunching behavior can be found in the scattered light.

B-spline modal method: a polynomial approach compared to the Fourier modal method.

A detailed analysis of the B-spline Modal Method (BMM) for one- and two-dimensional diffraction gratings and a comparison to the Fourier Modal Method (FMM) is presented. Owing to its intrinsic capability to accurately resolve discontinuities, BMM avoids the notorious problems of FMM that are associated with the Gibbs phenomenon. As a result, BMM facilitates significantly more efficient eigenmode computations.

Strongly coupled slow-light polaritons in one-dimensional disordered localized states.

Cavity quantum electrodynamics advances the coherent control of a single quantum emitter with a quantized radiation field mode, typically piecewise engineered for the highest finesse and confinement in the cavity field. This enables the possibility of strong coupling for chip-scale quantum processing, but till now is limited to few research groups that can achieve the precision and deterministic requirements for these polariton states. Here we observe for the first time coherent polariton states of strong coupled single quantum dot excitons in inherently disordered one-dimensional localized modes in slow-light photonic crystals.

Simple magneto-optic transition metal models for time-domain simulations.

Efficient modelling of the magneto-optic effects of transition metals such as nickel, cobalt and iron is a topic of growing interest within the nano-optics community. In this paper, we present a general discussion of appropriate material models for the linear dielectric properties for such metals, provide parameter fits and formulate the anisotropic response in terms of auxiliary differential equations suitable for time-domain simulations. We validate both our material models and their implementation by comparing numerical results obtained with the Discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method to analytical results and previously published experimental data.

Titania woodpiles with complete three-dimensional photonic bandgaps in the visible.

Titania woodpile photonic crystals are fabricated by a combination of stimulated-emission depletion direct laser writing and a novel titania double-inversion procedure. The procedure relies on atomic-layer deposition, which is also used to fine-tune the template geometry to maximize the gapsize. Angle- and polarization-resolved transmittance spectroscopy and a comparison with theory provide evidence for the first complete photonic bandgap in the visible.

In situ observation of plasmon tuning in a single gold nanoparticle during controlled melting.

In this Letter we study the relations among shape, symmetry, and plasmon resonance shift in a single gold nanoparticle during laser melting. A beam of an argon ion laser is focused on a selected particle, while its optical and shape properties can be observed with the help of a combined dark-field/photoluminescence microscope and an atomic force microscope, respectively. Starting from a spherical shape, radiation pressure forms the melting gold particle into an upright standing rod on a glass substrate, showing a characteristic dipole scattering pattern.