Optically Patternable Metamaterial Below Diffraction Limit.

We report an optically patternable metamaterial (OPM) for ultraviolet nanolithography below the diffraction limit. The OPM features monolayered silver nanoislands embedded within a photosensitive polymer by using spin-coating of an ultrathin polymer, oblique angle deposition, and solid-state embedment of silver nanoislands. This unique configuration simultaneously exhibits both negative effective permittivity and high image contrast in the ultraviolet range, which enables the surface plasmon excitation for the clear photolithographic definition of minimum feature size of 70 nm (≲ λ/5) beyond the near-field zone.

Plasmon enhanced photoacoustic generation from volumetric electromagnetic hotspots.

This work reports plasmon enhanced photoacoustic generation by using a three dimensional plasmonic absorber. The 3D plasmonic absorber comprises a thin polymer film on glass nanopillar arrays with nanogap-rich silver nanoislands. The 3D plasmonic absorber clearly shows 24.

Repeated Solid-state Dewetting of Thin Gold Films for Nanogap-rich Plasmonic Nanoislands.

This work reports a facile wafer-level fabrication for nanogap-rich gold nanoislands for highly sensitive surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) by repeating solid-state thermal dewetting of thin gold film. The method provides enlarged gold nanoislands with small gap spacing, which increase the number of electromagnetic hotspots and thus enhance the extinction intensity as well as the tunability for plasmon resonance wavelength. The plasmonic nanoislands from repeated dewetting substantially increase SERS enhancement factor over one order-of-magnitude higher than those from a single-step dewetting process and they allow ultrasensitive SERS detection of a neurotransmitter with extremely low Raman activity.

Electrokinetic preconcentration of small molecules within volumetric electromagnetic hotspots in surface enhanced Raman scattering.

The on-chip integration of a preconcentration chamber for ultrasensitive surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is shown. Small molecules are preconcentrated using 3D volumetric electromagnetic hotspots. The experimental results demonstrate an enhancement of the SERS signals of over two orders of magnitude, which allows the fingerprinting of neurotransmitter molecules at the nanomolar level and furthers the selective detection of oppositely charged molecules.

A deformable nanoplasmonic membrane reveals universal correlations between plasmon resonance and surface enhanced Raman scattering.

A quantitative correlation between plasmon resonance and surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signals is revealed by using a novel active plasmonic method, that is, a deformable nanoplasmonic membrane. A single SERS peak has the maximum gain at the corresponding plasmon resonance wavelength, which has the maximum extinction product of an excitation and the corresponding Raman scattering wavelengths.

Terahertz photoconductive antenna with metal nanoislands.

This work presents a nanoplasmonic photoconductive antenna (PCA) with metal nanoislands for enhancing terahertz (THz) pulse emission. The whole photoconductive area was fully covered with metal nanoislands by using thermal dewetting of thin metal film at relatively low temperature. The metal nanoislands serve as plasmonic nanoantennas to locally enhance the electric field of an ultrashort pulsed pump beam for higher photocarrier generation.

Enhancement of terahertz pulse emission by optical nanoantenna.

Bridging the gap between ultrashort pulsed optical waves and terahertz (THz) waves, the THz photoconductive antenna (PCA) is a major constituent for the emission or detection of THz waves by diverse optical and electrical methods. However, THz PCA still lacks employment of advanced breakthrough technologies for high-power THz emission. Here, we report the enhancement of THz emission power by incorporating optical nanoantennas with a THz photoconductive antenna.