Issue 4 (2015)

Surface magneto plasmons and their applications in the infrared frequencies

Surface magneto plasmons and their applications in the infrared frequencies

Due to their promising properties, surface magneto plasmons have attracted great interests in the field of plasmonics recently. Apart from flexible modulation of the plasmonic properties by an external magnetic field, surface magneto plasmons also promise …

Quantum Electrostatic Model for Optical Properties of Nanoscale Gold Films

Quantum Electrostatic Model for Optical Properties of Nanoscale Gold Films

The optical properties of thin gold films with thickness varying from 2.5 nm to 30 nm are investigated. Due to the quantum size effect, the optical constants of the thin gold film deviate from the Drude model for bulk material as film thickness decreases, …

Single photon avalanche detectors: prospects of new quenching and gain mechanisms

Single photon avalanche detectors: prospects of new quenching and gain mechanisms

While silicon single-photon avalanche diodes (SPAD) have reached very high detection efficiency and timing resolution, their use in fibre-optic communications, optical free space communications, and infrared sensing and imaging remains limited. III-V …

Optical integrated chips with micro and nanostructures for refractive index and SERS-based optical label-free sensing

Optical integrated chips with micro and nanostructures for refractive index and SERS-based optical label-free sensing

Label-free optical biosensing technologies have superior abilities of quantitative analysis, unmodified targets, and ultrasmall sample volume, compared to conventional fluorescence-label-based sensing techniques, in detecting various biomolecules. In this …

Nanowire Optoelectronics

Nanowire Optoelectronics

Semiconductor nanowires have been used in a variety of passive and active optoelectronic devices including waveguides, photodetectors, solar cells, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), lasers, sensors, and optical antennas. We review the optical properties of these …

Luminescent tracks of high-energy photoemitted electrons accelerated by plasmonic fields

Luminescent tracks of high-energy photoemitted electrons accelerated by plasmonic fields

The emission of an electron from a metal nanostructure under illumination and its subsequent acceleration in a plasmonic field forms a platform to extend these phenomena to deposited nanoparticles, which can be studied by state-of-the-art confocal microscopy …

Recent Progress on Plasmon-Enhanced Fluorescence

Recent Progress on Plasmon-Enhanced Fluorescence

The optically generated collective electron density waves on metal–dielectric boundaries known as surface plasmons have been of great scientific interest since their discovery. Being electromagnetic waves on gold or silver nanoparticle’s surface, …

Zinc Oxide Nanophotonics

Zinc Oxide Nanophotonics

The emerging field of nanophotonics initiated a dedicated study of single photon sources and optical resonators in new class of materials. One such material is zinc oxide (ZnO) that has been long considered only for classical light-emitting applications. …

Novel droplet near-field transducer for heat-assisted magnetic recording

Novel droplet near-field transducer for heat-assisted magnetic recording

Two main ingredients of plasmonics are surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) and localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) as they provide a high degree of concentration of electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of metal surfaces, which is well beyond that …

Intelligent Systems for Stabilizing Mode-Locked Lasers and Frequency Combs: Machine Learning and Equation-Free Control Paradigms for Self-Tuning Optics

Intelligent Systems for Stabilizing Mode-Locked Lasers and Frequency Combs: Machine Learning and Equation-Free Control Paradigms for Self-Tuning Optics

We demonstrate that a software architecture using innovations in machine learning and adaptive control provides an ideal integration platform for self-tuning optics. For mode-locked lasers, commercially available optical telecom components can be integrated …