RESUMEN
Plasmonic-waveguide lasers, which exhibit subdiffraction limit lasing and light propagation, are promising for the next-generation of nanophotonic devices in computation, communication, and biosensing. Plasmonic lasers supporting waveguide modes are often based on nanowires grown with bottom-up techniques that need to be transferred and aligned for use in optical circuits. Here, we demonstrate a monolithically fabricated ZnO/Al plasmonic-waveguide nanolaser compatible with the fabrication requirements of on-chip circuits. The nanolaser is designed with a plasmonic metal layer on the top of the laser cavity only, providing highly efficient energy transfer between photons, excitons, and plasmons, and achieving lasing in the ultraviolet region up to 330 K with a low threshold intensity (0.20 mJ/cm2 at room temperature). This work demonstrates the realization of a plasmonic-waveguide nanolaser without the need for transfer and positioning steps, which is the key for on-chip integration of nanophotonic devices.
RESUMEN
The significant enhancement seen in surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) heavily relies on the ability of plasmonic structures to strongly confine light. Current techniques used to fabricate plasmonic nanostructures have been limited in their reproducibility for bottom-up techniques or their feature size for top-down techniques. Here, we propose a tooth multilayer structure that can be fabricated by using physical vapor deposition and selective wet etching, achieving extremely small feature sizes and high reproducibility. A multilayer structure composed of two alternating materials whose thicknesses can be controlled accurately in the nanometer range is deposited on a flat substrate using ion-beam sputtering. Subsequent selective wet etching is used to form nanogaps in one of the materials constituting the multilayer, with the depth of the nanogaps being controlled by the wet etching time. Combining both techniques can allow the nanogap dimensions to be controlled at sub 10 nm length scale, thus achieving a tooth multilayer structure with high enhancement and tunability of the resonance mode over a broad range, ideal for SERS applications.
RESUMEN
Tamm plasmonic (TP) structures, consisting of a metallic film and a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR), can exhibit pronounced light confinement allowing for enhanced absorption in the metallic film at the wavelength of the TP resonance. This wavelength dependent absorption can be converted into an electrical signal through the internal photoemission of energetic hot-electrons from the metallic film. Here, by replacing the metallic film at the top of a TP structure with a hot-electron device in a metal-semiconductor-ITO (M-S-ITO) configuration, for the first time, we experimentally demonstrate a wavelength-selective photoresponse around the telecommunication wavelength of 1550 nm. The M-S-ITO junction is deliberately designed to have a low energy barrier and asymmetrical hot-electron generation, in order to guarantee a measurable net photocurrent even for sub-bandgap incident light with a photon energy of 0.8 eV (1550 nm). Due to the excitation of TPs between the metallic film in the M-S-ITO structure and the underlying DBR, the fabricated TP coupled hot-electron photodetector exhibits a sharp reflectance dip with a bandwidth of 43 nm at a wavelength of 1581 nm. The photoresponse matches the absorptance spectrum, with a maximum value of 8.26 nA mW-1 at the absorptance peak wavelength that decreases by more than 80% when the illumination wavelength is varied by only 52 nm (from 1581 to 1529 nm), thus realizing a high modulation wavelength-selective photodetector. This study demonstrates a high-performance, lithography-free, and wavelength-selective hot-electron near-infrared photodetector using an M-S-ITO-DBR planar structure.
RESUMEN
Medical textiles are widely used to exert pressure on human tissues during treatment of post-surgical hematoma, burn-related wounds, chronic venous ulceration, and other maladies. However, the inability to dynamically sense and adjust the applied pressure often leads to suboptimal pressure application, prolonging treatment or resulting in poor patient outcomes. Here, a simple strategy for measuring sub-bandage pressure by integrating stretchable optomechanical fibers into elastic bandages is demonstrated. Specifically, these fibers possess an elastomeric photonic multilayer cladding that surrounds an extruded stretchable core filament. They can sustain repetitive strains of over 100%, and respond to deformation with a predictable and reversible color variation. Integrated into elastic textiles, which apply pressure as a function of their strain, these fibers can provide instantaneous and localized pressure feedback. These colorimetric fiber sensors are well suited for medical textiles, athletic apparel, and other smart wearable technologies, especially when repetitive, large deformations are required.