Highly Localized Surface Plasmon Nanolasers via Strong Coupling.

Surface plasmons have robust and strong confinement to the light field which is beneficial for the light-matter interaction. Surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (SPACER) has the potential to be integrated on the semiconductor chip as a compact coherent light source, which can play an important role in further extension of Moore's law. In this study, we demonstrate the localized surface plasmon lasing at room temperature in the communication band using metallic nanoholes as the plasmonic nanocavity and InP nanowires as the gain medium. Optimizing laser performance has been demonstrated by coupling between two metallic nanoholes which adds another degree of freedom for manipulating the lasing properties. Our plasmonic nanolasers exhibit lower power consumption, smaller mode volumes, and higher spontaneous emission coupling factors due to enhanced light-matter interactions, which are very promising in the applications of high-density sensing and photonic integrated circuits.

Optical Bistability in Nanosilicon with Record Low Q-Factor.

We demonstrated optical bistability in an amorphous silicon Mie resonator with a size of ∼100 nm and Q-factor as low as ∼4 by utilizing photothermal and thermo-optical effects. We not only experimentally confirmed the steep intensity transition and the hysteresis in the scattering response from silicon nanocuboids but also established a physical model to numerically explain the underlying mechanism based on temperature-dependent competition between photothermal heating and heat dissipation. The transition between the bistable states offered particularly steep superlinearity of scattering intensity, reaching an effective nonlinearity order of ∼100th power over excitation intensity, leading to the potential of advanced optical switching devices and super-resolution microscopy.

Critical coupling vortex with grating-induced high Q-factor optical Tamm states.

We investigate optical Tamm states supported by a dielectric grating placed on top of a distributed Bragg reflector. It is found that under certain conditions the Tamm state may become a bound state in the continuum. The bound state, in its turn, induces the effect of critical coupling with the reflectance amplitude reaching an exact zero. We demonstrate that the critical coupling point is located in the core of a vortex of the reflection amplitude gradient in the space of the wavelength and angle of incidence. The emergence of the vortex is explained by the coupled mode theory.

Plasmonic Nanolasers Enhanced by Hybrid Graphene-Insulator-Metal Structures.

Graphene is a two-dimensional (2D) structure that creates a linear relationship between energy and momentum that not only forms massless Dirac fermions with extremely high group velocity but also exhibits a broadband transmission from 300 to 2500 nm that can be applied to many optoelectronic applications, such as solar cells, light-emitting devices, touchscreens, ultrafast photodetectors, and lasers. Although the plasmonic resonance of graphene occurs in the terahertz band, graphene can be combined with a noble metal to provide a versatile platform for supporting surface plasmon waves. In this study, we propose a hybrid graphene-insulator-metal (GIM) structure that can modulate the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) dispersion characteristics and thus influence the performance of plasmonic nanolasers. Compared with values obtained when graphene is not used on an Al template, the propagation length of SPP waves can be increased 2-fold, and the threshold of nanolasers is reduced by 50% when graphene is incorporated on the template. The GIM structure can be further applied in the future to realize electrical control or electrical injection of plasmonic devices through graphene.

Ultracompact Pseudowedge Plasmonic Lasers and Laser Arrays.

Concentrating light at the deep subwavelength scale by utilizing plasmonic effects has been reported in various optoelectronic devices with intriguing phenomena and functionality. Plasmonic waveguides with a planar structure exhibit a two-dimensional degree of freedom for the surface plasmon; the degree of freedom can be further reduced by utilizing metallic nanostructures or nanoparticles for surface plasmon resonance. Reduction leads to different lightwave confinement capabilities, which can be utilized to construct plasmonic nanolaser cavities. However, most theoretical and experimental research efforts have focused on planar surface plasmon polariton (SPP) nanolasers. In this study, we combined nanometallic structures intersecting with ZnO nanowires and realized the first laser emission based on pseudowedge SPP waveguides. Relative to current plasmonic nanolasers, the pseudowedge plasmonic lasers reported in our study exhibit extremely small mode volumes, high group indices, high spontaneous emission factors, and high Purell factors beneficial for the strong interaction between light and matter. Furthermore, we demonstrated that compact plasmonic laser arrays can be constructed, which could benefit integrated plasmonic circuits.

Liquid-crystal tunable color filters based on aluminum metasurfaces.

Designing color pixels using plasmonic nanostructures and metasurfaces has become a luring area of research in recent years. Here, we experimentally demonstrated the voltage tunability of a dynamic plasmonic color filter by using an aluminum grating integrated with the nematic liquid crystal (LC). Along with a typical substrate coated with rubbed polyimide film, the aluminum grating itself serves as a molecular alignment layer to form a twisted LC cell. This hybrid structure allows electrically controlled transmission color by applying the voltage. A significant spectral tunability of such a device has been demonstrated by applying the small voltage from 0 to 4 Vrms.

Broadband gold nanoantennas arrays with transverse dimension effects.

Broadband resonance in gold paired-rods nanoantennas and paired-strips gratings is investigated when the nanostructure's transverse (non-polarization) dimension is changed from paired-rods to paired-strips. Increasing the transverse dimension blue shifts the resonance wavelength and widens its bandwidth due to cancellation of the magnetic field between nanoantennas. A derived resistor-inductor-capacitor (RLC) equivalent circuit model verifies the nanostructures' resonance when elongating the transverse dimensions. Paired-strips gratings have a bandwidth 2.04 times that of paired-rods nanoantennas.

Electrically tunable transmission of gold binary-grating metasurfaces integrated with liquid crystals.

Planar photonics using metasurfaces is of great interest because a metasurface can control the flow of light beyond that attainable with natural materials. The resonance wavelength of a binary-grating metasurface is adjustable by changing the width and thickness of the nanostructure. We propose a novel combination of nematic liquid crystals and a binary-grating metasurface with which the diffraction efficiency can be controlled by adjusting the applied voltage.

Tamm plasmon selective thermal emitters.

Selective thermal emissions from the excitation of Tamm plasmon polaritons (TPPs) are demonstrated. A TPP structure is composed of a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) and a thin metal film on top. The tunability of the thermal emission was experimentally achieved only by changing the DBR's photonic bandgap. Low cost and large area selective thermal emitters can be realized by TPP-based structures.

Effective absorption enhancement in dielectric thin-films with embedded paired-strips gold nanoantennas.

This study focuses on determining the optimized thickness of an absorbing thin-film with embedded gold nanoantennas, for absorption enhancement. Gold paired-strips nanoantennas with small gaps have been proposed for light trapping because of the high localized electric field in the gap due to resonance. Paired-strips nanoantennas with small gaps produce higher effective absorption compared to single-strip gratings. From the average absorption two-dimensional map, the absorption enhancement may increase by a factor of up to 20 for gold paired-strips nanoantennas embedded in a 100 nm thick P3HT:PCBM thin-film.

Room-Temperature Gate Voltage Modulation of Plasmonic Nanolasers.

Stable electrical modulation of plasmonic nanolasers is achieved on a hybrid graphene-insulator-metal (GIM) platform at room temperature. To support surface plasmon polariton (SPP) resonance, a zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire is placed on the GIM platform to create a plasmonic cavity with a compact mode volume of 2.6 × 10-2 λ3, and the graphene layer is used as a transparent electrode for electrical modulation. When a gate voltage is applied, the surface electron density of Al varied, which results in the shifting of its plasma frequency and thus affects its SPP dispersion. In particular, this variation strongly changes the internal loss of the SPP mode; thus, the lasing thresholds of the ZnO nanowire plasmonic nanolasers on the GIM platform can be modulated by the gate voltage. This study demonstrates the gate voltage modulation of ZnO nanowire plasmonic nanolasers on a GIM platform at room temperature. These nanolasers can exhibit ultrahigh modulation speed on the order of terahertz. Accordingly, plasmonic nanolasers with gate voltage modulation have high potential for plasmonic circuit applications with high operation speed and versatility.

Near-Field Photodetection in Direction Tunable Surface Plasmon Polaritons Waveguides Embedded with Graphene.

2D materials have manifested themselves as key components toward compact integrated circuits. Because of their capability to circumvent the diffraction limit, light manipulation using surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) is highly-valued. In this study, plasmonic photodetection using graphene as a 2D material is investigated. Non-scattering near-field detection of SPPs is implemented via monolayer graphene stacked under an SPP waveguide with a symmetric antenna. Energy conversion between radiation power and electrical signals is utilized for the photovoltaic and photoconductive processes of the gold-graphene interface and biased electrodes, measuring a maximum photoresponsivity of 29.2 mA W-1 . The generated photocurrent is altered under the polarization state of the input light, producing a 400% contrast between the maximum and minimum signals. This result is universally applicable to all on-chip optoelectronic circuits.

Multipole engineering by displacement resonance: a new degree of freedom of Mie resonance.

The canonical studies on Mie scattering unravel strong electric/magnetic optical responses in nanostructures, laying foundation for emerging meta-photonic applications. Conventionally, the morphology-sensitive resonances hinge on the normalized frequency, i.e. particle size over wavelength, but non-paraxial incidence symmetry is overlooked. Here, through confocal reflection microscopy with a tight focus scanning over silicon nanostructures, the scattering point spread functions unveil distinctive spatial patterns featuring that linear scattering efficiency is maximal when the focus is misaligned. The underlying physical mechanism is the excitation of higher-order multipolar modes, not accessible by plane wave irradiation, via displacement resonance, which showcases a significant reduction of nonlinear response threshold, sign flip in all-optical switching, and spatial resolution enhancement. Our result fundamentally extends the century-old light scattering theory, and suggests new dimensions to tailor Mie resonances.

Wavelength- and Angle-Selective Photodetectors Enabled by Graphene Hot Electrons with Tamm Plasmon Polaritons.

Recently, two-dimensional materials have attracted attention owing to their special optical characteristics and miniaturization, with low thickness as well as extremely high responsivity. Additionally, Tamm plasmon polariton (TPP) resonance can be observed by combining a metal film and a one-dimensional (1D) photonic crystal (PC), where an electric field confinement is located at the metal-1D PC interface. In this study, a graphene layer combined with a TPP is proposed as a wavelength- and angle-selective photodetector. The graphene layer is located where the strong field confinement occurs, and the photocurrent response is significantly enhanced with increasing absorption by over four times (from 62.5 µA⋅W-1 to 271 µA⋅W-1 and undetected state to 330 µA⋅W-1 in two different samples). Moreover, the graphene-TPP photodetector has wavelength and angle selectivity, which can be applied in LiDAR detecting, sun sensors, laser beacon tracking, and navigational instruments in the future.

Double-Resolved Beam Steering by Metagrating-Based Tamm Plasmon Polariton.

We consider Tamm plasmon polariton in a subwavelength grating patterned on top of a Bragg reflector. We demonstrate dynamic control of the phase and amplitude of a plane wave reflected from such metagrating due to resonant coupling with the Tamm plasmon polariton. The tunability of the phase and amplitude of the reflected wave arises from modulation of the refractive index of a transparent conductive oxide layer by applying the bias voltage. The electrical switching of diffracted beams of the ±1st order is shown. The possibility of doubling the angular resolution of beam steering by using asymmetric reflected phase distribution with integer and half-integer periods of the metagrating is demonstrated.

Metal-Dielectric Polarization-Preserving Anisotropic Mirror for Chiral Optical Tamm State.

This numerical study demonstrates the possibility of exciting a chiral optical Tamm state localized at the interface between a cholesteric liquid crystal and a polarization-preserving anisotropic mirror conjugated to a metasurface. The difference of the proposed structure from a fully dielectric one is that the metasurface makes it possible to decrease the number of layers of a polarization-preserving anisotropic mirror by a factor of more than two at the retained Q-factor of the localized state. It is shown that the proposed structure can be used in a vertically emitting laser.

Nonscattering Photodetection in the Propagation of Unidirectional Surface Plasmon Polaritons Embedded with Graphene.

Recently, nanoscale light manipulation using surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) has received considerable research attention. The conventional method of detecting SPPs is through light scattering or using bulky Si or Ge photodetectors. However, these bulky systems limit the application of nanophotonic circuits. In this study, the light-matter interaction between graphene and SPP was investigated. For realizing an improved integration in nanocircuits, single-layer graphene was added to asymmetric SPP nanoantenna arrays for nonscattering detection in the near field. The developed device is capable of detecting the controlled propagation of SPPs with a photoresponsivity of 15 mA/W, which paves the way for the new-generation on-chip optical communication.

Germanium Metasurfaces with Lattice Kerker Effect in Near-Infrared Photodetectors.

In O-and C-band optical communications, Ge is a promising material for detecting optical signals that are encoded into electrical signals. Herein, we study 2D periodic Ge metasurfaces that support optically induced electric dipole and magnetic dipole lattice resonances. By overlapping Mie resonances and electric dipole lattice resonances, we realize the resonant lattice Kerker effect and achieve narrowband absorption. This effect was applied to the photodetector demonstrated in this study. The absorptance of the Ge nanoantenna arrays increased 6-fold compared to that of the unpatterned Ge films. In addition, the photocurrent in such Ge metasurface photodetectors increases by approximately 5 times compared with that in plane Ge film photodetectors by the interaction of these strong near-fields with semiconductors and the further transformation of the optical energy into electricity.

Metal nanoslit lenses with polarization-selective design.

We present comprehensive studies on thin diffraction lenses made of arrays of subwavelength, parallel nanoslits in a gold film. Such a nanoslit lens can operate either as a conventional convex or concave lens. The lenses can be designed to focus linearly polarized light with polarization either perpendicular (TM-lens) or parallel to the slits (TE-lens), while the orthogonal polarization diverges when passing through the lens. The designs of each lens are initially built on the dispersion relations for wave propagation through a parallel-plate waveguide. Both TM- and TE-lenses were realized experimentally, and full-wave numerical simulations fully support the experimental results.

Numerical modeling of plasmonic nanoantennas with realistic 3D roughness and distortion.

Nanostructured plasmonic metamaterials, including optical nanoantenna arrays, are important for advanced optical sensing and imaging applications including surface-enhanced fluorescence, chemiluminescence, and Raman scattering. Although designs typically use ideally smooth geometries, realistic nanoantennas have nonzero roughness, which typically results in a modified enhancement factor that should be involved in their design. Herein we aim to treat roughness by introducing a realistic roughened geometry into the finite element (FE) model. Even if the roughness does not result in significant loss, it does result in a spectral shift and inhomogeneous broadening of the resonance, which could be critical when fitting the FE simulations of plasmonic nanoantennas to experiments. Moreover, the proposed approach could be applied to any model, whether mechanical, acoustic, electromagnetic, thermal, etc, in order to simulate a given roughness-generated physical phenomenon.