ABSTRACT
Metasurfaces are artificially structured surfaces able to control the properties of light at subwavelength scales. While, initially, they have been proposed as means to control classical optical fields, they are now emerging as nanoscale sources of quantum light, in particular of entangled photons with versatile properties. Geometric resonances in metasurfaces have been recently used to engineer the frequency spectrum of entangled photons, but the emission directivity was so far less studied. Here, we generate photon pairs via spontaneous parametric down conversion from a metasurface supporting a quasi-bound state in the continuum (BIC) leading to remarkable emission directivities. The pair generation rate is enhanced 67 times compared to the case of an unpatterned film of the same thickness and material. At the wavelength of the quasi-BIC resonance, photons are mostly emitted backwards, while their partners, spectrally detuned by only 8 nm, are emitted forwards. This behavior demonstrates fine spectral splitting of entangled photons and their bi-directional emission, never before observed in nanoscale sources. We expect this work to be a starting point for the efficient demultiplexing of photons in nanoscale quantum optics.
ABSTRACT
We demonstrate magnetic control of optical reflectance with no ferromagnetic material via combining the Faraday rotation and the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) in a Kretschman configuration under magnetic fields < 0.5 T. The SPR produces the polarization sensitive reflectance from the Au or Ag thin film coated on a N-BK7 prism in which the Faraday rotation occurs. The gold (Au) or silver (Ag) metal film as a plasmonic film somewhat acts as an incident angle-dependent reflection polarizer that can sensitively sense the polarization change induced by the Faraday rotation that occurs in a prism. We find that combination of Faraday rotation and the surface plasmon can induce a significant magnetic modulation of reflectance normalized with respect to that obtained with no magnetic fields at a specific incident angle of light. The magnetic control of optical reflectance presented may find an application in polarizer-free photonic devices with no ferromagnetic material for magneto-optical modulation.
ABSTRACT
We present the plasmonic fiber based optical glucometer. A thin gold layer is coated on clad-free core of multimode optical fiber along 3 cm length to excite surface plasmons at 632.8 nm wavelength. Glucose oxidase is immobilized on the metal surface for glucose sensing. The effective surface refractive index increases by gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide that are generated upon glucose injection, leading to plasmonic condition change with a consequence of optical power change at the fiber output. We obtain limit of detection of glucose concentration of 6.75 mg/dL, indicating higher sensitivity than the wavelength interrogating SPR glucometer that uses a spectrometer of 1nm spectral resolution. The coefficient of variation is 8.6% at a glucose concentration of 80 mg/dL at room temperature. We also examine the effects of ambient temperature variations from -10 °C to 40 °C on the performance of the presented sensor and compared them with those on commercially available glucometers that are based on enzyme electrodes. We find that the presented fiber sensor produced standard deviation of 12.1 mg/dL at a glucose concentration of 80 mg/dL under such varying temperature, which is, even without additional temperature correction function, comparable to the commercialized ones.