Ultrafast ammonia-driven, microwave-assisted synthesis of nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots and their optical properties
For the first time, a facile, ultrafast, ammonia-driven microwave-assisted synthesis of high-quality nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (NGQDs) at room temperature and atmospheric pressure is presented. This one-step method is very cheap, environment …
Carbon nanotubes for ultrafast fibre lasers
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess both remarkable optical properties and high potential for integration in various photonic devices. We overview, here, recent progress in CNT applications in fibre optics putting particular emphasis on fibre lasers. We discuss …
Highly integrated optical phased arrays: photonic integrated circuits for optical beam shaping and beam steering
Technologies for efficient generation and fast scanning of narrow free-space laser beams find major applications in three-dimensional (3D) imaging and mapping, like Lidar for remote sensing and navigation, and secure free-space optical communications. The …
Room-temperature single-photon emission from zinc oxide nanoparticle defects and their in vitro photostable intrinsic fluorescence
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a promising semiconductor that is suitable for bioimaging applications due to its intrinsic defect fluorescence. However, ZnO generally suffers from poor photostability. We report room-temperature single-photon emission from optical …
From gold nanoparticles to luminescent nano-objects: experimental aspects for better gold-chromophore interactions
Gold nanoparticles have been the center of interest for scientists since many decades. Within the last 20 years, the research in that field has soared with the possibility to design and study nanoparticles with controlled shapes. From spheres to more complex …
Nonlinear plasmonic imaging techniques and their biological applications
Nonlinear optics, when combined with microscopy, is known to provide advantages including novel contrast, deep tissue observation, and minimal invasiveness. In addition, special nonlinearities, such as switch on/off and saturation, can enhance the spatial …
Angular plasmon response of gold nanoparticles arrays: approaching the Rayleigh limit
The regular arrangement of metal nanoparticles influences their plasmonic behavior. It has been previously demonstrated that the coupling between diffracted waves and plasmon modes can give rise to extremely narrow plasmon resonances. This is the case when …
Photonic spin Hall effect in metasurfaces: a brief review
The photonic spin Hall effect (SHE) originates from the interplay between the photon-spin (polarization) and the trajectory (extrinsic orbital angular momentum) of light, i.e. the spin-orbit interaction. Metasurfaces, metamaterials with a reduced …
Broadband infrared absorption enhancement by electroless-deposited silver nanoparticles
Decorating semiconductor surfaces with plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) is considered a viable solution for enhancing the absorptive properties of photovoltaic and photodetecting devices. We propose to deposit silver NPs on top of a semiconductor wafer by a …
Stochastic simulation and robust design optimization of integrated photonic filters
Manufacturing variations are becoming an unavoidable issue in modern fabrication processes; therefore, it is crucial to be able to include stochastic uncertainties in the design phase. In this paper, integrated photonic coupled ring resonator filters are …
Rotation and deformation of human red blood cells with light from tapered fiber probes
Dynamic rotation and deformation of human red blood cells (RBCs) are extremely important to investigate the survival and mechanical features of cells, which will be of great physiological and pathological significance. Here, we report an optical approach that …
Metasurfaces-based holography and beam shaping: engineering the phase profile of light
The ability to engineer and shape the phase profile of optical beams is in the heart of any optical element. Be it a simple lens or a sophisticated holographic element, the functionality of such components is dictated by their spatial phase response. In …
Recent advances in nanoplasmonic biosensors: applications and lab-on-a-chip integration
Motivated by the recent progress in the nanofabrication field and the increasing demand for cost-effective, portable, and easy-to-use point-of-care platforms, localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) biosensors have been subjected to a great scientific …
Recent advancements in plasmon-enhanced promising third-generation solar cells
The unique optical properties possessed by plasmonic noble metal nanostructures in consequence of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) are useful in diverse applications like photovoltaics, sensing, non-linear optics, hydrogen generation, and …
Hollow metal nanostructures for enhanced plasmonics: synthesis, local plasmonic properties and applications
Metallic nanostructures have received great attention due to their ability to generate surface plasmon resonances, which are collective oscillations of conduction electrons of a material excited by an electromagnetic wave. Plasmonic metal nanostructures are …
Aptamer-assembled nanomaterials for fluorescent sensing and imaging
Aptamers, which are selected in vitro by a technology known as the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), represent a crucial recognition element in molecular sensing. With advantages such as good biocompatibility, facile …
Ultracompact all-optical logic gates based on nonlinear plasmonic nanocavities
In this study, nanoscale integrated all-optical XNOR, XOR, and NAND logic gates were realized based on all-optical tunable on-chip plasmon-induced transparency in plasmonic circuits. A large nonlinear enhancement was achieved with an organic composite cover …
Chip-integrated all-optical diode based on nonlinear plasmonic nanocavities covered with multicomponent nanocomposite
Ultracompact chip-integrated all-optical diode is realized experimentally in a plasmonic microstructure, consisting of a plasmonic waveguide side-coupled two asymmetric plasmonic composite nanocavities covered with a multicomponent nanocomposite layer, formed …
Nonlinear plasmonics at high temperatures
We solve the Maxwell and heat equations self-consistently for metal nanoparticles under intense continuous wave (CW) illumination. Unlike previous studies, we rely on experimentally-measured data for metal permittivity for increasing temperature and for the …
Investigating the transverse optical structure of spider silk micro-fibers using quantitative optical microscopy
The transverse optical structure of two orb-weaver (family Araneidae) spider dragline silks was investigated using a variant of the inverse-scattering technique. Immersing the silks in a closely refractive index-matched liquid, the minimum achievable image …
Harvesting the loss: surface plasmon-based hot electron photodetection
Although the nonradiative decay of surface plasmons was once thought to be only a parasitic process within the plasmonic and metamaterial communities, hot carriers generated from nonradiative plasmon decay offer new opportunities for harnessing absorption …
Spin-dependent optics with metasurfaces
Optical spin-Hall effect (OSHE) is a spin-dependent transportation phenomenon of light as an analogy to its counterpart in condensed matter physics. Although being predicted and observed for decades, this effect has recently attracted enormous interests due …
Optical transmission theory for metal-insulator-metal periodic nanostructures
A semi-analytical formalism for the optical properties of a metal-insulator-metal periodic nanostructure using coupled-mode theory is presented. This structure consists in a dielectric layer in between two metallic layers with periodic one-dimensional …
Integrated nanoplasmonic waveguides for magnetic, nonlinear, and strong-field devices
As modern complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuitry rapidly approaches fundamental speed and bandwidth limitations, optical platforms have become promising candidates to circumvent these limits and facilitate massive increases in computational …
Multidimensional microstructured photonic device based on all-solid waveguide array fiber and magnetic fluid
An all-solid waveguide array fiber (WAF) is one kind of special microstructured optical fiber in which the higher-index rods are periodically distributed in a low-index silica host to form the transverse two-dimensional photonic crystal. In this paper, one …