Engineering a strong and stable ultraviolet chiroptical effect in a large-area chiral plasmonic shell.

Ultraviolet chiral metamaterials (UCM) are highly desired for their strong interaction with the intrinsic resonance of molecules and ability in manipulating the polarization state of high energy photons, but rarely reported to date due to their small feature size and complex geometry. Herein, we design and fabricate a kind of novel ultraviolet chiral plasmonic shell (UCPS) by combing the stepwise Al deposition and colloid-sphere assembled techniques. The cancellation effect originated from the disorder lattices of micro-domains in the colloid monolayer has been successfully overcome by optimizing the deposition parameters, and a strong CD signal of larger than 1 deg in the UV region is demonstrated both in simulation and experiment. This strong ultraviolet chiroptical resonances mainly come from the surface chiral lattice resonance mode, the whispering gallery mode and also the interaction between neighbor shells, and can be effectively tuned by changing structural parameters, for example, the sphere diameter, or even slightly increasing the deposition temperature in experiment. To improve the stability, the fabricated UCPSs are protected by N2 in the deposition chamber and then passivated by UV-ozone immediately after each deposition step. The formed UCPS show an excellent stability when exposing in the atmospheric environment. The computer-aided geometrical model, electromagnetic modes, and the tunable chiroptical resonance modes have been systematically investigated.

Asymmetric chiroptical effect from chiral medium filled golden slit grating on substrate.

In this Letter, we report a giant and robust asymmetric chiroptical effect (ACOE) in the chiral medium filled golden slit grating on glass substrate (CMGSG-GS). This ACOE comes from the influence of interface asymmetry on the electromagnetic cross-coupling in the CMGSG-GS, and it is inherently different than that reported in the Faraday medium and the planar anisotropic chiral metamaterials. Both the polarization eigenstate and the transmission matrix are highly dependent on the metal structure used in the CMGSG-GS. The polarization eigenstates of the CMGSG-GS are two co-rotating elliptical states with ellipticity of nearly 0, and they remain mostly unchanged for opposite directions. The transmission matrices of opposite directions are normal matrices, which do not show any symmetric law although the geometry of the CMGSG-GS owns a high rotational symmetry. The reported ACOE gives a measurable physical parameter to reveal the events happening at interface.

Vegetal fiber paper matrix impregnated with silica gel for benzene removal.

Removing benzene from indoor space plays an important role in indoor air purification. A novel filter with vegetal fiber paper (VFP) as matrix hosting silica gel is proposed in this paper for benzene removal. In order to investigate the feasibility and performance of this idea, firstly, three pieces of VFP samples impregnated with different amounts of silica gel are fabricated and their benzene adsorption quantities are tested. The results show that three times is recommended as the optimal number for impregnating. The VFP sample impregnated with silica gel after the third impregnating exhibits commendable coating stability and good benzene adsorption performance. Additionally, at low relative pressure (Pb /Ps  ≤ 0.05), the experimental data of benzene adsorption isotherms fit well with the Langmuir model with R2 greater than 0.97. Then, two actual filters made of VFP impregnated with silica gel after the third impregnating were fabricated. It is found that the pressure drop of the actual filter is only 1200 Pa/m when the air velocity is 2 m/s. Besides, the one-pass efficiency of the filter can reach to 19.44%. It is expected that the silica gel coated on the filter can be modified to improve the purification performance of the filter.

Broadband Asymmetric Light Transmission at Metal/Dielectric Composite Grating.

Optical diode-like effect has sparked growing interest in recent years due to its potential applications in integrated photonic systems. In this paper, we propose and numerically demonstrate a new type of easy-processing metal/dielectric cylinder composite grating on semi-sphere substrate, which can achieve high-contrast asymmetric transmission of unpolarized light for the sum of all diffraction modes in the entire visible region, and effectively guide the diffraction light transmitting out the substrate. The asymmetric light transmission (ALT) ratio is larger than 2 dB in the waveband from 380 nm to 780 nm and the maximum ALT ratio can reach to 13 dB at specified wavelengths. The thorough theoretical research reveals that the proposed metal/dielectric pillar composite grating structure, together with the substrate, can effectively excite localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) effect and waveguide mode (WGM), and enlarge the diffraction difference between forward and backward transmission spaces, including both number of diffraction orders and diffraction efficiency, thus resulting in high-contrast broadband ALT phenomenon. In particular, lowering the symmetry of the grating can achieve polarization-dependent ALT. Such a type of easy-processing ALT device with high performance for both polarized and unpolarized light can be regarded as suitable candidates in practical applications.