Mixed finite element numerical mode matching method for designing infrared broadband polarization-independent metamaterial absorbers.

Conventional numerical methods have found widespread applications in the design of metamaterial structures, but their computational costs can be high due to complex three-dimensional discretization needed for large complex problems. In this work, we apply a recently developed numerical mode matching (NMM) method to design a black phosphorus (BP) absorber. NMM transforms a complex three-dimensional (3D) problem into 2D numerical eigenvalue problems plus a 1-D analytical propagation solution, thus it can save a lot of computational costs. BP is treated as a 2D surface and represented by the anisotropic surface conductance. With a realistic simulation study, we show that our method is more accurate and efficient than the standard finite element method (FEM). Our designed absorber can achieve an average absorption of 97.4% in the wavelength range of 15 to 23 µm under normal incidence. Then, we investigate the physical mechanism of the absorber, tuning the geometric parameters and electron doping to optimize the performance. In addition, the absorption spectra under oblique incidence and arbitrary polarization are studied. The results confirm that our absorber is polarization-independent and has high absorption at large incident angles. Our work validates the superiority of NMM and provides a new simulation platform for emerging metamaterial device design.

All-dielectric orthogonal doublet cylindrical metalens in long-wave infrared regions.

Metalens have been recently introduced to overcome shortcomings of traditional lenses and optical systems, such as large volume and complicated assembly. As a proof-of-principle demonstration, we design an all-dielectric converging cylindrical metalens (CML) for working in long-wave infrared regions around 9 µm, which is made up of silicon-pillar on MgF2 dielectric layer. We further demonstrate the focusing effect of an orthogonal doublet cylindrical metalens (ODCM). Two CMLs are combined orthogonally and a circular focusing spot was demonstrated. This proves that within a certain size range, the focusing effect achieved by the ODCM is similar to that of a traditional circular metalens.

Doubly mirror-induced electric and magnetic anapole modes in metal-dielectric-metal nanoresonators.

Anapole mode is a nonradiative resonance originating from the destructive interference between co-excited Cartesian electric dipole and toroidal dipole moments. With at least two symmetric circulating currents, the anapole mode in all-dielectric nanoresonators provides the opportunity to operate the double perfect electric conductor (PEC) mirror effects. In this work, unlike the conventional metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) nanostructure generating a plasmonic magnetic resonance, two metal components are employed to produce the fictitious images of the middle dielectric, and the whole system can thus excite the doubly mirror-induced anapole mode. Electric anapole mode and its magnetic counterpart are, respectively, investigated in two types of MDM configurations according to their own symmetric characteristics. Benefiting from the double PEC mirror effects, the doubly mirror-induced electric and magnetic anapole modes possess the larger average electric-field enhancement factors (9 and 56.9 folds compared with those of the conventional ones, respectively), as well as the narrower line widths. This work will pave a new way for tailoring and boosting anapole modes in metal-dielectric hybrid nanoresonators and open up new opportunities for many significant applications in nonlinear and quantum nanophotonics.

Carbon Nanotubes Enabling Highly Efficient Cell Apoptosis by Low-Intensity Nanosecond Electric Pulses via Perturbing Calcium Handling.

Effective induction of targeted cancer cells apoptosis with minimum side effects has always been the primary objective for anti-tumor therapy. In this study, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are employed for their unique ability to target tumors and amplify the localized electric field due to the high aspect ratio. Highly efficient and cancer cell specific apoptosis is finally achieved by combining carbon nanotubes with low intensity nanosecond electric pulses (nsEPs). The underlying mechanism may be as follows: the electric field produced by nsEPs is amplified by CNTs, causing an enhanced plasma membrane permeabilization and Ca2+ influx, simultaneously triggering Ca2+ release from intracellular storages to cytoplasm in a direct/indirect manner. All the changes above lead to excessive mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake. Substructural damage and obvious mitochondria membrane potential depolarization are caused subsequently with the combined action of numerously reactive oxygen species production, ultimately initiating the apoptotic process through the translocation of cytochrome c to the cytoplasm and activating apoptotic markers including caspase-9 and -3. Thus, the combination of nanosecond electric field with carbon nanotubes can actually promote HCT116 cell death via mitochondrial signaling pathway-mediated cell apoptosis. These results may provide a new and highly efficient strategy for cancer therapy.

Enhancing third-harmonic generation by mirror-induced electric quadrupole resonance in a metal-dielectric nanostructure.

Electric quadrupole resonance (EQR), a commonly available high-order Mie-type resonance in all-dielectric nanoparticles, suffers from weak field enhancement and thus inferior third-harmonic generation (THG). In this work, according to the intrinsic centrosymmetry of current distribution, mirror-induced EQR in a silicon disk is effectively generated by introducing a bottom metal film with the perfect electric conductor (PEC) mirror effect, manifesting preeminent capabilities of tailoring far-field scattering and enhancing near-field intensity. The beneficial THG by mirror-induced EQR is enhanced by more than 50-fold as compared to that of the typical EQR without the PEC mirror effect. Furthermore, the influence of the silicon Kerr effect on THG is investigated under increasing pump intensity, achieving maximal efficiency of 2.2×10-4 under pump intensity I0=3GW/cm2. This work opens possibilities of exploring new mirror-induced Mie-type resonances in hybrid nanostructures, finding important applications in frequency conversion, spectroscopy, and sensing at the nanoscale.

High-efficient and low-coupling spoof surface plasmon polaritons enabled by V-shaped microstrips.

We propose a novel variety of V-shaped microstrips for highly efficient and strongly confined spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) propagation. We analyze the dispersion characteristics of the V-shaped SSPPs microstrip units and find that the asymptotic frequency of the dispersion curve can be significantly reduced by adding the folded stub without increasing the lateral dimension of the structure. The V-shaped microstrip possesses the advantage of being compatible with a conventional microstrip without the need for complicated and bulky mode conversion structures in other typical grooved SSPP waveguides. Then, broadband transitions with a tapered microstrip and an array of graded height V-shaped units with good impedance matching and high mode conversion efficiency are designed. The simulated and measured results demonstrate that the proposed V-shaped microstrip has excellent broadband lowpass filter characteristics with the reflection coefficient (S11) less than -10 dB and the transmission coefficient (S21) higher than -3 dB in the frequency range from 0 to 10.3 GHz. Furthermore, the coupling characteristics of the parallel and symmetrically arranged V-shaped microstrips are investigated. Compared to conventional parallel microstrips with a separation of 2.8 mm, the proposed parallel V-shaped microstrips with 2 mm inner-overlapping have significantly lower coupling effects in the frequency ranging from 0 to 10 GHz. The low coupling, strong field confinement, and flexible dispersion manipulation of the proposed microstrip make it possible to achieve device miniaturization and noise interference suppression, which may have great potentials in the development of various highly integrated microwave plasmonic circuits, devices, and systems.

Broadband Waveguide Cloak for Water Waves.

Inspired by electromagnetic waveguide cloaks with gradient index metamaterials, we fabricated a broadband cloak with simply a gradient depth profile on the bottom and without any other structures on the top to confine water waves in a certain area for cloaking regions. The new physics of mode conversion for water waves is first found. The experimental and numerical simulation results are in good agreement and show that the presented device has a nice performance for various situations and is feasible over a broadband of working frequencies. Being easy to construct, this design is potentially of significance for port applications.

Three-dimensional MR reconstruction of high-contrast magnetic susceptibility by the variational born iterative method based on the magnetic field volume integral equation.

PURPOSE: To provide high-quality and high-contrast magnetic susceptibility mapping, a 3D MR reconstruction method for magnetic susceptibility based on the magnetic field volume integral equation with the variational Born iterative method (VBIM) is developed. METHODS: Three-dimensional magnetic susceptibility is reconstructed from the positive rotating magnetic field component H1+ of the radiofrequency field acquired by B1 mapping. The stabilized biconjugate gradient fast Fourier transform (BCGS-FFT) method is implemented in the forward problem to solve for the magnetic field, and the conjugate gradient fast Fourier transform method is implemented in the inverse problem to reconstruct the magnetic susceptibility distribution. RESULTS: Numerical results demonstrated that good effectiveness and high accuracy can be achieved for both the forward solver of the stabilized biconjugate gradient fast Fourier transform method and the inverse solver of the VBIM method. The method proved to be robust under noise contamination. Moreover, the magnetic susceptibilities with much higher contrasts than that of the non-full wave methods can also be efficiently reconstructed. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed method can reconstruct the magnetic susceptibility of not only human head, but also other human tissues or materials such as magnetic contrast agents with high magnetic susceptibilities. It has promising applications in high-contrast magnetic susceptibility mapping. Magn Reson Med 79:923-932, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Graphene-based hybrid plasmonic waveguide for highly efficient broadband mid-infrared propagation and modulation.

In this paper, a graphene-based hybrid plasmonic waveguide is proposed for highly efficient broadband surface plasmon polariton (SPP) propagation and modulation at mid-infrared (mid-IR) spectrum. The hybrid plasmonic waveguide is composed of a monolayer graphene sheet in the center, a polysilicon gating layer, and two inner dielectric buffer layers and two outer parabolic-ridged silicon substrates symmetrically placed on both sides of the graphene. Owing to the unique parabolic-ridged waveguide structure, the light-graphene interaction and subwavelength SPPs confinement of the fundamental SPP mode for the hybrid waveguide can be significantly increased. Under the graphene chemical potential of 1.0 eV, the proposed waveguide can achieve outstanding SPP propagation performance with long propagation length of 12.1-16.7 µm and small normalized mode area of ~10-4 in the frequency range of 10-20 THz, exhibiting more than one order smaller in the normalized mode area while remaining the propagation length almost the same level with respect to the hybrid plasmonic waveguide without parabolic ridges. By tuning the graphene chemical potential from 0.1 to 1.0 eV, we demonstrate the waveguide has a modulation depth greater than 51% for the frequency ranging from 10 to 20 THz and reaches a maximum of nearly 100% at the frequency higher than 18 THz. Benefitting from the excellent broadband mid-IR propagation and modulation performance, the graphene-based hybrid plasmonic waveguide may open up a new way for various mid-IR waveguides, modulators, interconnects and optoelectronic devices.

Broadband tunable terahertz absorber based on vanadium dioxide metamaterials.

An active absorption device is proposed based on vanadium dioxide metamaterials. By controlling the conductivity of vanadium dioxide, resonant absorbers are designed to work at wide range of terahertz frequencies. Numerical results show that a broadband terahertz absorber with nearly 100% absorptance can be achieved, and its normalized bandwidth of 90% absorptance is 60% under normal incidence for both transverse-electric and transverse-magnetic polarizations when the conductivity of vanadium dioxide is equal to 2000 Ω-1cm-1. Absorptance at peak frequencies can be continuously tuned from 30% to 100% by changing the conductivity from 10 Ω-1cm-1 to 2000 Ω-1cm-1. Absorptance spectra analysis shows a clear independence of polarization and incident angle. The presented results may have tunable spectral applications in sensor, detector, and thermophotovoltaic device working at terahertz frequency bands.

Enhancing artificial sum frequency generation from graphene-gold metamolecules.

The enhanced artificial sum frequency generation (SFG) is realized by graphene-gold metamolecules at the mid-infrared without any natural nonlinear material. The unit cell of the proposed metamolecules combines an inner graphene cut-wire meta-atom and an outer gold split-ring resonator meta-atom. In order to achieve high efficiency of the artificial SFG, not only the novel material of graphene with high mobility is used as the constituent material, but also the double resonances at two fundamental frequencies are excited to form an intensive magnetic Lorentz force. Both time domain response and frequency domain response are analyzed numerically. Results show that the SFG efficiency is at least two orders of magnitude larger than that of second-harmonic generation, which involves only a single resonance. The tunability of graphene on the SFG is studied as well. This work will facilitate the engineering of nonlinear metamaterials, whose nonlinear properties can be customized by artificial structuring, in their practical applications.

Concentrators for Water Waves.

By introducing concepts from transformation optics to the manipulation of water waves, we design and experimentally demonstrate two annular devices for concentrating waves, which employ gradient depth profiles based on Fabry-Pérot resonances. Our measurements and numerical simulations confirm the concentrating effect of the annular devices and show that they are effectively invisible to the water waves. We show that transformation optics is thus an effective framework for designing devices to improve the efficiency of wave energy collection, and we expect potential applications in coastline ocean engineering.

A hybrid method to simulate elastic wave scattering of three-dimensional objects.

A hybrid method based on the finite-difference method and equivalence principle to simulate elastic wave scattering of three-dimensional objects is proposed. In this method, the near fields are first calculated in a rectangular volume containing the object by the finite-difference method. Then the displacements and tractions on a virtual surface are transformed to the far field by the application of the equivalence principle in elastodynamics. The feasibility is verified by comparing modeling results with the analytical solution for the canonical point force source radiation problem. Modeling for complex scatterer structures shows the advantage of this method in handling multi-scale scattering problems.

Spectral element boundary integral method with periodic layered medium dyadic Green's function for multiscale nano-optical scattering analysis.

In this work, we propose a numerical solver combining the spectral element - boundary integral (SEBI) method with the periodic layered medium dyadic Green's function. The periodic layered medium dyadic Green's function is formulated under matrix representation. The surface integral equations (SIEs) are then implemented as the radiation boundary condition to truncate the top and bottom computation domain. After describing the interior computation domain with the vector wave equations, and treating the lateral boundaries with Bloch periodic boundary conditions, the whole computation domains are discretized with mixed-order Gauss- Lobatto-Legendre basis functions in the SEBI method. This method avoids the discretization of the top and bottom layered media, so it can be much more efficient than conventional methods. Numerical results validate the proposed solver with fast convergence throughout the whole computation domain and good performance for typical multiscale nano-optical applications.

Plasmonic waveguide with folded stubs for highly confined terahertz propagation and concentration.

We proposed a novel planar terahertz (THz) plasmonic waveguide with folded stub arrays to achieve excellent terahertz propagation performance with tight field confinement and compact size based on the concept of spoof surface plasmon polaritons (spoof SPPs). It is found that the waveguide propagation characteristics can be directly manipulated by increasing the length of the folded stubs without increasing its lateral dimension, which exhibits much lower asymptotic frequency of the dispersion relation and even tighter terahertz field confinement than conventional plasmonic waveguides with rectangular stub arrays. Based on this waveguiding scheme, a terahertz concentrator with gradual step-length folded stubs is proposed to achieve high terahertz field enhancement, and an enhancement factor greater than 20 is demonstrated. This work offers a new perspective on very confined terahertz propagation and concentration, which may have promising potential applications in various integrated terahertz plasmonic circuits and devices, terahertz sensing and terahertz nonlinear optics.

Broadband absorber with periodically sinusoidally-patterned graphene layer in terahertz range.

We demonstrate that a broadband terahertz absorber with near-unity absorption can be realized using a net-shaped periodically sinusoidally-patterned graphene sheet, placed on a dielectric spacer supported on a metallic reflecting plate. Because of the gradient width modulation of the unit graphene sheet, continuous plasmon resonances can be excited, and therefore broadband terahertz absorption can be achieved. The results show that the absorber's normalized bandwidth of 90% terahertz absorbance is over 65% under normal incidence for both TE and TM polarizations when the graphene chemical potential is set as 0.7 eV. And the broadband absorption is insensitive to the incident angles and the polarizations. The peak absorbance remains more than 70% over a wide range of the incident angles up to 60° for both polarizations. Furthermore, this absorber also has the advantage of flexible tunability via electrostatic doping of graphene sheet, which peak absorbance can be continuously tuned from 14% to 100% by controlling the chemical potential from 0 eV to 0.8 eV. The design scheme is scalable to develop various graphene-based tunable broadband absorbers at other terahertz, infrared, and visible frequencies, which may have promising applications in sensing, detecting, and optoelectronic devices.

ISAR Imaging of Ship Targets Based on an Integrated Cubic Phase Bilinear Autocorrelation Function.

For inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging of a ship target moving with ocean waves, the image constructed with the standard range-Doppler (RD) technique is blurred and the range-instantaneous-Doppler (RID) technique has to be used to improve the image quality. In this paper, azimuth echoes in a range cell of the ship target are modeled as noisy multicomponent cubic phase signals (CPSs) after the motion compensation and a RID ISAR imaging algorithm is proposed based on the integrated cubic phase bilinear autocorrelation function (ICPBAF). The ICPBAF is bilinear and based on the two-dimensionally coherent energy accumulation. Compared to five other estimation algorithms, the ICPBAF can acquire higher cross term suppression and anti-noise performance with a reasonable computational cost. Through simulations and analyses with the synthetic model and real radar data, we verify the effectiveness of the ICPBAF and corresponding RID ISAR imaging algorithm.

Independent tuning of double plasmonic waves in a free-standing graphene-spacer-grating-spacer-graphene hybrid slab.

The independent excitation and tuning of double plasmonic waves are realized in a free-standing graphene-spacer-grating-spacer-graphene (GSGSG) hybrid slab, which consists of two graphene field effect transistors placed back-to-back to each other. Resulted from the high transparency and the tight confinement of surface plasmonic mode for the graphene, double plasmonic waves can be independently excited by guided-mode resonances (GMRs). Theoretical and numerical investigations are performed in the mid-infrared band. Furthermore, the tuning of individual GMR resonant wavelengths with respect to the system parameters is studied. The results provide opportunities to engineer the proposed hybrid slab for wavelength selective and multiplexing applications.

Interaction between charged nanoparticles and vesicles: coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations.

An enhanced understanding of the interactions between charged nanoparticles (CNPs) and a curved vesicle membrane may have important implications for the design of nanocarrier agents and drug delivery systems. In this work, coarse-grained molecular dynamics (CGMD) simulations of the CNPs with vesicles were performed to evaluate the effects of hydrophobicity, surface charge density and distribution on the curved vesicle membrane. The simulations reveal that there exist four distinct modes (insertion, repulsion, adhesion, and penetration) in the CNP-vesicle interaction. In contrast to previous studies on a planar membrane, the interactions of CNPs and a curved vesicle membrane show some novel properties. CNPs with low surface charge density (or neutral ones) can penetrate into the interior of the vesicle membrane more easily because of the increased membrane tension. The asymmetry between two leaflets of the membrane induces different interaction strengths of the negatively CNPs with the outer and inner leaflets. After penetration, the negatively CNPs prefer to stay close to the inner leaflet inside the vesicle where CNPs have stronger interactions with their surroundings. In the present work, we analyze the detailed mechanism of CNP's spontaneous penetration into vesicles, which is rarely mentioned in previous simulations. Moreover, we found that the negatively CNPs with the same surface charge density but different distribution result in different modes: the homogeneous mode is more likely to adsorb on the vesicle surface while the inhomogeneous mode tends to be more penetrable. In addition, the flip-flop phenomenon of the lipid membrane and the exchanging of water in or out of the vesicle were observed during penetration. Our results demonstrate that the electrostatic effect plays an essential role in the interaction between CNPs and vesicles. These findings suggest a way of controlling the CNP-vesicle interaction by coupling the hydrophobic properties, surface charge density and distribution of CNPs to enhance the probability of CNP's penetration into vesicles.

Enhanced plasmonic light absorption engineering of graphene: simulation by boundary-integral spectral element method.

Graphene's relatively poor absorption is an essential obstacle for designing graphene-based photonic devices with satisfying photo-responsivity. To enhance the tunable light absorption of graphene, appropriate excitation of localized surface plasmon resonance is considered as a promising approach. In this work, the strategy of incorporating periodic cuboid gold nanoparticle (NP) cluster arrays and cylindrical gold NP arrays with Bragg reflectors into graphene-based photodetectors are theoretically studied by the boundary-integral spectral element method (BI-SEM). With the BI-SEM, the models can be numerically analyzed with excellent accuracy and efficiency. Numerical simulation shows that the proposed structures can effectively engineer the light absorption in graphene by tuning plasmon resonance. In the spectra of 300 nm to 1000 nm, a maximum light absorption of 67.54% is observed for the graphene layer with optimal parameters of the photodetector model.