Issue 5 (2017)

A sensitive ultraviolet light photodiode based on graphene-on-zinc oxide Schottky junction

A sensitive ultraviolet light photodiode based on graphene-on-zinc oxide Schottky junction

In this study, we present a simple ultraviolet (UV) light photodiode by transferring a layer of graphene film on single-crystal ZnO substrate. The as-fabricated heterojunction exhibited typical rectifying behavior, with a Schottky barrier height of 0.623 eV. …

Anomalous forward scattering of gain-assisted dielectric shell-coated metallic core spherical particles

Anomalous forward scattering of gain-assisted dielectric shell-coated metallic core spherical particles

We have investigated the scattering properties of an individual core-shell nanoparticle using the Mie theory, which can be tuned to support both electric and magnetic modes simultaneously. In general, the suppression of forward scattering can be realized by …

High efficiency and low roll-off green OLEDs with simple structure by utilizing thermally activated delayed fluorescence material as the universal host

High efficiency and low roll-off green OLEDs with simple structure by utilizing thermally activated delayed fluorescence material as the universal host

We achieved high-efficiency and low-roll-off green fluorescent and phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) simultaneously by adopting the thermally activated delayed fluorescence material of bissulfone as the universal host. At a luminance of …

Investigation of localized and delocalized excitons in ZnO/ZnS core-shell heterostructured nanowires

Investigation of localized and delocalized excitons in ZnO/ZnS core-shell heterostructured nanowires

The localized states in ZnO nanowires (NWs) through the growth of ZnS shell have been introduced in this paper. Morphology and optical properties of the ZnO/ZnS core-shell heterostructured NWs after different rapid thermal annealing (RTA) treatments are …

Electrospinning for nano- to mesoscale photonic structures

Electrospinning for nano- to mesoscale photonic structures

The fabrication of photonic and electronic structures and devices has directed the manufacturing industry for the last 50 years. Currently, the majority of small-scale photonic devices are created by traditional microfabrication techniques that create …

Plasmonics for emerging quantum technologies

Plasmonics for emerging quantum technologies

Expanding the frontiers of information processing technologies and, in particular, computing with ever-increasing speed and capacity has long been recognized as an important societal challenge, calling for the development of the next generation of quantum …

Ultracompact on-chip photothermal power monitor based on silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguides

Ultracompact on-chip photothermal power monitor based on silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguides

We propose and demonstrate an ultracompact on-chip photothermal power monitor based on a silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPWG), which consists of a metal strip, a silicon core, and a silicon oxide (SiO2) insulator layer between them. When light injected …

Fabricating waveguide Bragg gratings (WBGs) in bulk materials using ultrashort laser pulses

Fabricating waveguide Bragg gratings (WBGs) in bulk materials using ultrashort laser pulses

Optical waveguide Bragg gratings (WBGs) can be created in transparent materials using femtosecond laser pulses. The technique is conducted without the need for lithography, ion-beam fabrication methods, or clean room facilities. This paper reviews the field …

Application of nanophotonics to the next generation of surface-emitting lasers

Application of nanophotonics to the next generation of surface-emitting lasers

Novel trends and concepts in the design and fabrication of vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) and their integration in optical networks and implementation in integrated photonics applications are discussed. To serve these goals and match the …

Propagation length enhancement of surface plasmon polaritons in gold nano-/micro-waveguides by the interference with photonic modes in the surrounding active dielectrics

Propagation length enhancement of surface plasmon polaritons in gold nano-/micro-waveguides by the interference with photonic modes in the surrounding active dielectrics

In this work, the unique optical properties of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), i.e. subwavelength confinement or strong electric field concentration, are exploited to demonstrate the propagation of light signal at 600 nm along distances in the range from …

Ge/Si core/shell quantum dots in alumina: tuning the optical absorption by the core and shell size

Ge/Si core/shell quantum dots in alumina: tuning the optical absorption by the core and shell size

Ge/Si core/shell quantum dots (QDs) recently received extensive attention due to their specific properties induced by the confinement effects of the core and shell structure. They have a type II confinement resulting in spatially separated charge carriers, …

Electromagnetically induced transparency in optical microcavities

Electromagnetically induced transparency in optical microcavities

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a quantum interference effect arising from different transition pathways of optical fields. Within the transparency window, both absorption and dispersion properties strongly change, which results in extensive …

Fundamentals and applications of SERS-based bioanalytical sensing

Fundamentals and applications of SERS-based bioanalytical sensing

Plasmonics is an emerging field that examines the interaction between light and metallic nanostructures at the metal-dielectric interface. Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a powerful analytical technique that uses plasmonics to obtain detailed …

Engineered plasmonic Thue-Morse nanostructures for LSPR detection of the pesticide Thiram

Engineered plasmonic Thue-Morse nanostructures for LSPR detection of the pesticide Thiram

In this paper, the size- and shape-dependent spectral characteristics of plasmonic nanostructures based on the Thue-Morse (ThMo) sequence are investigated in theory and experiment. We designed, fabricated, and characterized nine different Au nanopillars (NPs) …

3-D near-field imaging of guided modes in nanophotonic waveguides

3-D near-field imaging of guided modes in nanophotonic waveguides

Highly evanescent waveguides with a subwavelength core thickness present a promising lab-on-chip solution for generating nanovolume trapping sites using overlapping evanescent fields. In this work, we experimentally studied Si3N4 waveguides whose …

Broadband plasmonic silver nanoflowers for high-performance random lasing covering visible region

Broadband plasmonic silver nanoflowers for high-performance random lasing covering visible region

Multicolor random lasing has broad potential applications in the fields of imaging, sensing, and optoelectronics. Here, silver nanoflowers (Ag NF) with abundant nanogaps are fabricated by a rapid one-step solution-phase synthesis method and are first proposed …

Unidirectional reflectionless light propagation at exceptional points

Unidirectional reflectionless light propagation at exceptional points

In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of unidirectional reflectionless light propagation in photonic devices at exceptional points (EPs). EPs, which are branch point singularities of the spectrum, associated with the coalescence of both eigenvalues …

Ultracompact all-optical full-adder and half-adder based on nonlinear plasmonic nanocavities

Ultracompact all-optical full-adder and half-adder based on nonlinear plasmonic nanocavities

Ultracompact chip-integrated all-optical half- and full-adders are realized based on signal-light induced plasmonic-nanocavity-modes shift in a planar plasmonic microstructure covered with a nonlinear nanocomposite layer, which can be directly integrated into …

Tipping solutions: emerging 3D nano-fabrication/ -imaging technologies

Tipping solutions: emerging 3D nano-fabrication/ -imaging technologies

The evolution of optical microscopy from an imaging technique into a tool for materials modification and fabrication is now being repeated with other characterization techniques, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), focused ion beam (FIB) …

Recent advances in surface plasmon resonance imaging: detection speed, sensitivity, and portability

Recent advances in surface plasmon resonance imaging: detection speed, sensitivity, and portability

Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor is a powerful tool for studying the kinetics of biomolecular interactions because they offer unique real-time and label-free measurement capabilities with high detection sensitivity. In the past two decades, SPR …

Optical, photonic and optoelectronic properties of graphene, h-NB and their hybrid materials

Optical, photonic and optoelectronic properties of graphene, h-NB and their hybrid materials

Because of the linear dispersion relation and the unique structure of graphene’s Dirac electrons, which can be tuned the ultra-wide band, this enables more applications in photonics, electronics and plasma optics. As a substrate, hexagonal boron nitride …

Sharp phase variations from the plasmon mode causing the Rabi-analogue splitting

Sharp phase variations from the plasmon mode causing the Rabi-analogue splitting

The Rabi-analogue splitting in nanostructures resulting from the strong coupling of different resonant modes is of importance for lasing, sensing, switching, modulating, and quantum information processes. To give a clearer physical picture, the phase analysis …

Shortwave-infrared (SWIR) emitters for biological imaging: a review of challenges and opportunities

Shortwave-infrared (SWIR) emitters for biological imaging: a review of challenges and opportunities

Shortwave infrared radiation (SWIR) is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum from approximately 900 nm to 2500 nm. Recent advances in imaging systems have expanded the application of SWIR emitters from traditional fields in materials science to …

Rare earth based nanostructured materials: synthesis, functionalization, properties and bioimaging and biosensing applications

Rare earth based nanostructured materials: synthesis, functionalization, properties and bioimaging and biosensing applications

Rare earth based nanostructures constitute a type of functional materials widely used and studied in the recent literature. The purpose of this review is to provide a general and comprehensive overview of the current state of the art, with special focus on …

Gold nanorods based diffusion reflection measurements: current status and perspectives for clinical applications

Gold nanorods based diffusion reflection measurements: current status and perspectives for clinical applications

Optical imaging is a powerful tool for investigating the structure and function of tissues. Tissue optical imaging technologies are generally discussed under two broad regimes: microscopic and macroscopic, while the latter is widely investigated in the field …

Direct generation of linearly polarized single photons with a deterministic axis in quantum dots

Direct generation of linearly polarized single photons with a deterministic axis in quantum dots

We report the direct generation of linearly polarized single photons with a deterministic polarization axis in self-assembled quantum dots (QDs), achieved by the use of non-polar InGaN without complex device geometry engineering. Here, we present a …

Radiative sky cooling: fundamental physics, materials, structures, and applications

Radiative sky cooling: fundamental physics, materials, structures, and applications

Radiative sky cooling reduces the temperature of a system by promoting heat exchange with the sky; its key advantage is that no input energy is required. We will review the origins of radiative sky cooling from ancient times to the modern day, and illustrate …

Advances in antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation at the nanoscale

Advances in antimicrobial photodynamic inactivation at the nanoscale

The alarming worldwide increase in antibiotic resistance amongst microbial pathogens necessitates a search for new antimicrobial techniques, which will not be affected by, or indeed cause resistance themselves. Light-mediated photoinactivation is one such …