Wide-incident-angle, polarization-independent broadband-absorption metastructure without external resistive elements by using a trapezoidal structure.

The absorption of electromagnetic waves in a broadband frequency range with polarization insensitivity and incidence-angle independence is greatly needed in modern technology applications. Many structures based on metamaterials have been suggested for addressing these requirements; these structures were complex multilayer structures or used special materials or external electric components, such as resistive ones. In this paper, we present a metasurface structure that was fabricated simply by employing the standard printed-circuit-board technique but provides a high absorption above 90% in a broadband frequency range from 12.35 to 14.65 GHz. The metasurface consisted of structural unit cells of 4 symmetric substructures assembled with a metallic bar pattern, which induced broadband absorption by using a planar resistive interaction in the pattern without a real resistive component. The analysis, simulation, and measurement results showed that the metasurface was also polarization insensitive and still maintained an absorption above 90% at incident angles up to 45°. The suggested metasurface plays a role in the fundamental design and can also be used to design absorbers at different frequency ranges. Furthermore, further enhancement of the absorption performance is achieved by improved design and fabrication.

Spatial photoluminescence and lifetime mappings of quasi-2D perovskites coupled with a dielectric metasurface.

Light-matter interaction between quantum emitters and optical cavities plays a vital role in fundamental quantum photonics and the development of optoelectronics. Resonant metasurfaces are proven to be an efficient platform for tailoring the spontaneous emission (SE) of the emitters. In this work, we study the interplay between quasi-2D perovskites and dielectric TiO2 metasurfaces. The metasurface, functioning as an open cavity, enhances electric fields near its plane, thereby influencing the emissions of the perovskite. This is verified through angle-resolved photoluminescence (PL) studies. We also conducted reflectivity measurements and numerical simulations to validate the coupling between the quasi-2D perovskites and photonic modes. Notably, our work introduces a spatial mapping approach to study Purcell enhancement. Using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM), we directly link the PL and lifetimes of the quasi-2D perovskites in spatial distribution when positioned on the metasurface. This correlation provides unprecedented insights into emitter distribution and emitter-resonator interactions. The methodology opens a new (to the best of our knowledge) approach for studies in quantum optics, optoelectronics, and medical imaging by enabling spatial mapping of both PL intensity and lifetime, differentiating between uncoupled quantum emitters and those coupled with different types of resonators.

Potential of a deep eutectic solvent in silver nanoparticle fabrication for antibiotic residue detection.

Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) have recently emerged as an alternative solvent for nanoparticle synthesis. There have been numerous advancements in the fabrication of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs), but the potential of DESs in Ag NP synthesis was neither considered nor studied carefully. In this study, we present a novel strategy to fabricate Ag NPs in a DES (Ag NPs-DES). The DES composed of ᴅ-glucose, urea, and glycerol does not contain any anions to precipitate with Ag+ cations. Our Ag NPs-DES sample is used in a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensor. The two analytes for SERS quantitation are nitrofurantoin (NFT) and sulfadiazine (SDZ) whose residues can be traced down to 10-8 M. The highest enhancement factors (EFs) are competitive at 6.29 × 107 and 1.69 × 107 for NFT and SDZ, respectively. Besides, the linearity coefficients are extremely close to 1 in the range of 10-8 to 10-3 M of concentration, and the SERS substrate shows remarkable uniformity along with great selectivity. This powerful SERS performance indicates that DESs have tremendous potential in the synthesis of nanomaterials for biosensor substrate construction.

1-D arrays of porous Mn0.21Co2.79O4 nanoneedles with an enhanced electrocatalytic activity toward the oxygen evolution reaction.

Developing effective electrocatalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) that are highly efficient, abundantly available, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly is critical to improving the overall efficiency of water splitting and the large-scale development of water splitting technologies. We, herein, introduce a facile synthetic strategy for depositing the self-supported arrays of 1D-porous nanoneedles of a manganese cobalt oxide (Mn0.21Co2.79O4: MCO) thin film demonstrating an enhanced electrocatalytic activity for OER in an alkaline electrolyte. For this, an MCO film was synthesized via thermal treatment of a hydroxycarbonate film obtained from a hydrothermal route. The deposited films were characterized through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In contrast to a similar 1D-array of a pristine Co3O4 (CO) nanoneedle film, the MCO film exhibits a remarkably enhanced electrocatalytic performance in the OER with an 85 mV lower overpotential for the benchmark current density of 10 mA cm-2. In addition, the MCO film also demonstrates long-term electrochemical stability for the OER in 1.0 M KOH aqueous electrolyte.

Functionalized silver nanoparticles for SERS amplification with enhanced reproducibility and for ultrasensitive optical fiber sensing in environmental and biochemical assays.

Plasmonic sensors have broad application potential in many fields and are promising to replace most bulky sensors in the future. There are various method-based chemical reduction processes for silver nanoparticle production with flexible structural shapes due to their simplicity and rapidity in nanoparticle fabrication. In this study, self-assembled silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) with a plasmon peak at 424 nm were successfully coated onto -NH2-functionalized glass and optical fiber sensors. These coatings were rapidly produced via two denaturation reactions in plasma oxygen, respectively, and an APTES ((3-aminopropyl)triethoxysilane) solution was shown to have high strength and uniformity. With the use of Ag NPs for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), excellent results and good stability with the detection limit up to 10-10 M for rhodamine B and 10-8 M for methylene blue, and a signal degradation of only ∼20% after storing for 30 days were achieved. In addition, the optical fiber sensor with Ag NP coatings exhibited a higher sensitivity value of 250 times than without coatings to the glycerol solution. Therefore, significant enhancement of these ultrasensitive sensors demonstrates promising alternatives to cumbersome tests of dye chemicals and biomolecules without any complicated process.

Flexible Magnetic Metasurface with Defect Cavity for Wireless Power Transfer System.

In this paper, we present a flexible magnetic metamaterial structure for enhancing the efficiency of wireless power transfer (WPT) systems operating at 13.56 MHz. The metasurface between transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) coils of the WPT system is constructed of a 3 × 5 metamaterial unit cell array with a total size of 150 × 300 mm2. Most metamaterial structures integrated into WPT systems are in planar configurations with a rigid substrate, which limits practical applications. The proposed metasurface is fabricated on an FR-4 substrate with a thin thickness of 0.2 mm; therefore, it can be bent with radii greater than 80 mm. A defect cavity is formed in the non-homogeneous metasurface by controlling the resonant frequency of the unit cell with an external capacitor. Simulation and measurement results show that the efficiency of the WPT system is significantly enhanced with metasurfaces. The performance of the WPT system can also be optimized with suitable bend profiles of metasurfaces. This proposed flexible metasurface could be widely applied to WPT systems, especially asymmetric, bendable, or wearable WPT systems.

Rotary bi-layer ring-shaped metamaterials for reconfiguration absorbers: publisher's note.

This publisher's note corrects errors in Appl. Opt.61, 9078 (2022)APOPAI0003-693510.1364/AO.471949.

Rotary bi-layer ring-shaped metamaterials for reconfiguration absorbers.

A reconfigurable metamaterial absorber (MA) in the microwave region is numerically and experimentally demonstrated based on a multi-layered metamaterial. The proposed structure can be mechanically switched between two different configurations to obtain designated absorption behaviors. By rotating the upper ring layer by multiples of 90 deg, two separated absorption modes of the MA are created. The first configuration acts as a single-band absorber, while the second configuration performs multi-band perfect absorption. In addition, the proposed structure can be easily switched into two different configurations to obtain a designated absorption feature. Our work is expected to provide an effective approach to obtaining reconfigurable MAs, which are useful for various applications.

Optimal frequency for magnetic resonant wireless power transfer in conducting medium.

In this article, we investigated the efficiency of a magnetic resonant wireless power transfer (MR-WPT) in conducting medium and found out an optimal frequency for designing the system. In conducting environment, the eddy current loss is generated by the high-frequency alternating currents in the coils. It is manifested by increased radiation resistance of resonator coil leads to decrease the quality factor (Q-factor), which reduces the wireless power transfer (WPT) efficiency in conducting medium. The Q-factor of the resonator coil strongly depending on the conductivity, frequency, and thickness of conducting block. Two MR-WPT systems operating at 10.0 MHz and 20.0 MHz are implemented to study the effect of conducting medium on efficiency. The achieved results indicated that the 20.0 MHz system has higher efficiency at a conductivity smaller than 6.0 S/m. However, at the larger conductivity, the 10.0 MHz system is more efficient. The results provide a method to determine the optimal frequency of a WPT system operating in the conducting medium with various conductivities and thickness blocks. This method can be used to design MR-WPT systems in numerous situations, such as autonomous underwater vehicles and medical implants.

Development of a highly sensitive sensor chip using optical diagnostic based on functionalized plasmonically active AuNPs.

Measuring solution concentration plays an important role in chemical, biochemical, clinical diagnosis, environmental monitoring, and biological analyses. In this work, we develop a transmission-mode localized surface plasmon resonance sensor chip system and convenient method which is highly efficient, highly sensitive for detection sensing using multimode fiber. The plasmonically active sensor's surface AuNPs with high-density NPs were decorated onto 1 cm sensing length of various clad-free fiber in the form of homogeneous monolayer utilizing a self-assembly process for immobilization of the target molecule. The carboxyl bond is formed through a functional reaction on the sensor head. Using the significance in the refractive index difference and numerical aperture, which is caused by a variation in the concentration of measuring bovine serum albumin (BSA) protein which can be accurately measured by the output signal. The refractive index variation of the medium analyte layer can be converted to signal output power change at the He-Ne wavelength of 632.8 nm. The sensor detection limit was estimated to be 0.075 ng ml-1for BSA protein which shows high sensitivity compared to other types of label-free optical biosensors. This also leads to a possibility of finding the improvement in the sensitivity label-free biosensors. The conventional method should allow multimode fiber biosensors to become a possible replacement for conventional biosensing techniques based on fluorescence.

Ultra-subwavelength thickness for dual/triple-band metamaterial absorber at very low frequency.

An integrated model utilizing external parasitic capacitors for a dual-band metamaterial perfect absorber (DMPA) is proposed and demonstrated in the UHF radio band. By adjusting the lumped capacitors on a simple meta-surface, the thickness of absorber is reduced to be only 1/378 and 1/320 with respect to the operating wavelength at 305 and 360.5 MHz, respectively. The simulations and the experiments confirm that the DMPA can maintain an absorption over 91% in a wide range of incident angle (up to 55°) and independent of the polarization of incident radiation. Additionally, we examine the integrated model for smaller dual-band absorber and absorption performance at higher frequencies (LTE band). Finally, we consolidate our approach by fabricating an ultrathin triple-band perfect absorber miniaturized to be only 1/591 of the longest operating wavelength. Our work is expected to contribute to the actualization of metamaterial-based devices working at radio frequency.

Polarization-independent, wide-incident-angle and dual-band perfect absorption, based on near-field coupling in a symmetric metamaterial.

We numerically and experimentally investigated a dual-band metamaterial perfect absorber (MPA), utilizing the near-field coupling of double split-ring resonators (DSRRs). Owing to the near-field coupling between resonators, two arms in each DSRR resonate in different phases, leading to a dual-band perfect absorption. The proposed MPA also exhibits polarization-insensitive behavior and maintains the high absorption above 90% up to a wide range of incident angle more than 45°. Finally, to further consolidate our approach, a multi-band absorption is also studied by exploiting the near-field coupling among a larger number of DSRRs. Our work is expected to be applied to future broadband devices using MPA.

Miniaturization for ultrathin metamaterial perfect absorber in the VHF band.

An efficient resolution for ultrathin metamaterial perfect absorber (MPA) is proposed and demonstrated in the VHF radio band (30-300 MHz). By adjusting the lumped capacitors and the through vertical interconnects, the absorber is miniaturized to be only λ/816 and λ/84 for its thickness and periodicity with respect to the operating wavelength (at 102 MHz), respectively. The detailed simulation and calculation show that the MPA can maintain an absorption rate over 90% in a certain range of incident angle and with a wide variation of capacitance. Additionally, we utilized the advantages of the initial single-band structure to realize a nearly perfect dual-band absorber in the same range. The results were confirmed by both simulation and experiment at oblique incidence angles up to 50°. Our work is expected to contribute to the actualization of future metamaterial-based devices working at radio frequency.