Issue 10: Metamaterials and Plasmonics in Asia (2020)

Metamaterials – from fundamentals and MEMS tuning mechanisms to applications

Metamaterials – from fundamentals and MEMS tuning mechanisms to applications

Metamaterials, consisting of subwavelength resonant structures, can be artificially engineered to yield desired response to electromagnetic waves. In contrast to the naturally existing materials whose properties are limited by their chemical compositions and …

Large-area metasurface on CMOS-compatible fabrication platform: driving flat optics from lab to fab

Large-area metasurface on CMOS-compatible fabrication platform: driving flat optics from lab to fab

A metasurface is a layer of subwavelength-scale nanostructures that can be used to design functional devices in ultrathin form. Various metasurface-based optical devices – coined as flat optics devices – have been realized with distinction performances in …

Tip-enhanced photoluminescence nano-spectroscopy and nano-imaging

Tip-enhanced photoluminescence nano-spectroscopy and nano-imaging

Photoluminescence (PL), a photo-excited spontaneous emission process, provides a wealth of optical and electronic properties of materials, which enable microscopic and spectroscopic imaging, biomedical sensing and diagnosis, and a range of photonic device …

Plasmon-enhanced organic and perovskite solar cells with metal nanoparticles

Plasmon-enhanced organic and perovskite solar cells with metal nanoparticles

Solution-processing thin-film solar techniques, such as organic solar cells (OSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PeSCs), hold great promise as cost-effective renewable energy sources with feasible large-scale manufacturing. However, these devices are suffering …

Plasmonic nanostructures in photodetection, energy conversion and beyond

Plasmonic nanostructures in photodetection, energy conversion and beyond

This review article aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of plasmonic nanostructures and their applications, especially on the integration of plasmonic nanostructures into devices. Over the past decades, plasmonic nanostructures and their …

Broadband metamaterials and metasurfaces: a review from the perspectives of materials and devices

Broadband metamaterials and metasurfaces: a review from the perspectives of materials and devices

Metamaterials can possess extraordinary properties not readily available in nature. While most of the early metamaterials had narrow frequency bandwidth of operation, many recent works have focused on how to implement exotic properties and functions over …

Visible to long-wave infrared chip-scale spectrometers based on photodetectors with tailored responsivities and multispectral filters

Visible to long-wave infrared chip-scale spectrometers based on photodetectors with tailored responsivities and multispectral filters

Chip-scale microspectrometers, operational across the visible to long-wave infrared spectral region will enable many remote sensing spectroscopy applications in a variety of fields including consumer electronics, process control in manufacturing, as well as …

All-metallic geometric metasurfaces for broadband and high-efficiency wavefront manipulation

All-metallic geometric metasurfaces for broadband and high-efficiency wavefront manipulation

Geometric metasurfaces have shown superior phase control capacity owing to the geometric nature of their phase profile. The existing geometric metasurfaces are generally composed of metal-dielectric composites or all-dielectric subwavelength structures. Here, …

Revealing photonic Lorentz force as the microscopic origin of topological photonic states

Revealing photonic Lorentz force as the microscopic origin of topological photonic states

Charged particles like electrons moving in a magnetic field encounter Lorentz force, which governs the formation of electronic topological edge states in quantum Hall effect systems. Here we show that photons transporting in magneto-optical materials and …

Topological edge and corner states in a two-dimensional photonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger lattice

Topological edge and corner states in a two-dimensional photonic Su-Schrieffer-Heeger lattice

Implementation of topology on photonics has opened new functionalities of photonic systems such as topologically protected boundary modes. We theoretically present polarization-dependent topological properties in a 2D Su-Schrieffer-Heeger lattice by using a …

Dual-band dichroic asymmetric transmission of linearly polarized waves in terahertz chiral metamaterial

Dual-band dichroic asymmetric transmission of linearly polarized waves in terahertz chiral metamaterial

Polarization conversion dichroism is of particular interest in manipulating the polarization state of light, whereas high-performance asymmetric transmission (AT) of linearly polarized waves is still inaccessible in the terahertz range. Here, a bilayer chiral …

A conformal transformation approach to wide-angle illusion device and absorber

A conformal transformation approach to wide-angle illusion device and absorber

We theoretically investigate the illusion device designed by a conformal transformation that can render an elliptic defect behave like a flat mirror. Different from illusion devices consisting of the complementary medium and anti-object with negative …

A complete phase diagram for dark-bright coupled plasmonic systems: applicability of Fano’s formula

A complete phase diagram for dark-bright coupled plasmonic systems: applicability of Fano’s formula

Although coupled plasmonic systems have been extensively studied in the past decades, their theoretical understanding is still far from satisfactory. Here, based on experimental and numerical studies on a series of symmetry-broken nano-patch plasmonic …

Optical telescope with Cassegrain metasurfaces

Optical telescope with Cassegrain metasurfaces

The Cassegrain telescope, made of a concave primary mirror and a convex secondary mirror, is widely utilized for modern astronomical observation. However, the existence of curved mirrors inevitably results in bulky configurations. Here, we propose a new …

Smart sensing metasurface with self-defined functions in dual polarizations

Smart sensing metasurface with self-defined functions in dual polarizations

For the intelligence of metamaterials, the -sensing mechanism and programmable reaction units are two important components for self-recognition and -determination. However, their realization still face great challenges. Here, we propose a smart sensing …

Experimental nanofocusing of surface plasmon polaritons using a gravitational field

Experimental nanofocusing of surface plasmon polaritons using a gravitational field

How to capture electromagnetic fields into sub-wavelength spatial scales has been a major challenge in nanophotonics, especially confining surface plasmon polaritons into regions as small as a few nanometers. Although various methods are proposed to achieve …

Mechanotunable optical filters based on stretchable silicon nanowire arrays

Mechanotunable optical filters based on stretchable silicon nanowire arrays

Nano-structural optical filters embedded in elastomers having high mechanical tunability provide the geometric degree of freedom for selective light manipulation. The active control of spectral information in typical structural optical filters is highly …

Extraordinary optical transmission and second harmonic generation in sub–10-nm plasmonic coaxial aperture

Extraordinary optical transmission and second harmonic generation in sub–10-nm plasmonic coaxial aperture

Recent development in nanofabrication technology has enabled the fabrication of plasmonic nanoapertures that can provide strong field concentrations beyond the diffraction limit. Further utilization of plasmonic nanoaperture requires the broadband tuning of …

Particle simulation of plasmons

Particle simulation of plasmons

Particle simulation has been widely used in studying plasmas. The technique follows the motion of a large assembly of charged particles in their self-consistent electric and magnetic fields. Plasmons, collective oscillations of the free electrons in …

AI-assisted on-chip nanophotonic convolver based on silicon metasurface

AI-assisted on-chip nanophotonic convolver based on silicon metasurface

Convolution operation is of great significance in on-chip all-optical signal processing, especially in signal analysis and image processing. It is a basic and important mathematical operation in the realization of all-optical computing. Here, we propose and …

Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite metamaterial for light trapping and photon-to-electron conversion

Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite metamaterial for light trapping and photon-to-electron conversion

Dielectric metamaterials with high refractive indices may have an incredible capability to manipulate the phase, amplitude, and polarization of the incident light. Combining the high refractive index and the excellent electrical characteristics of the hybrid …

Proposed method for highly selective resonant optical manipulation using counter-propagating light waves

Proposed method for highly selective resonant optical manipulation using counter-propagating light waves

Optical manipulation using electronic resonance can realize the selective manipulation of nano objects exhibiting quantum mechanical properties by confining electronic systems based on the characteristics of individual objects. This study theoretically …

Temperature-dependent dark-field scattering of single plasmonic nanocavity

Temperature-dependent dark-field scattering of single plasmonic nanocavity

Plasmonic materials have long been exploited for enhanced spectroscopy, integrated nanophotonic circuits, sensing, light harvesting, etc. Damping is the key factor that limits their performance and restricts the development of the field. Optical …

On-chip trans-dimensional plasmonic router

On-chip trans-dimensional plasmonic router

Plasmons, as emerging optical diffraction-unlimited information carriers, promise the high-capacity, high-speed, and integrated photonic chips. The on-chip precise manipulations of plasmon in an arbitrary platform, whether two-dimensional (2D) or …

Chaotic photon spheres in non-Euclidean billiard

Chaotic photon spheres in non-Euclidean billiard

With the advancement in understanding of the physics inside chaotic systems, chaos has been harnessed from a nuisance to a beneficial factor in optical devices. Light–matter interaction in chaotic systems has been utilised for improving broadband energy …

Systematic studies for improving device performance of quantum well infrared stripe photodetectors

Systematic studies for improving device performance of quantum well infrared stripe photodetectors

The integration of quantum well infrared photodetectors with plasmonic cavities has allowed for demonstration of sensitive photodetectors in the mid-infrared up to room-temperature operating conditions. However, clear guidelines for optimizing device …

Wide gamut, angle-insensitive structural colors based on deep-subwavelength bilayer media

Wide gamut, angle-insensitive structural colors based on deep-subwavelength bilayer media

Wide gamut and angle-insensitive structural colors are highly desirable for many applications. Herein, a new type of lithography-free, planar bilayer nanostructures for generating structural colors is presented, which is basically composed of a …

Generation of terahertz vector beams using dielectric metasurfaces via spin-decoupled phase control

Generation of terahertz vector beams using dielectric metasurfaces via spin-decoupled phase control

Cylindrical vector beams (CVBs), being a special kind of beams with spatially variant states of polarizations, are promising in photonics applications, including high-resolution imaging, plasmon excitation, optical trapping, and laser machining. Recently, …

Loss and gain in a plasmonic nanolaser

Loss and gain in a plasmonic nanolaser

Plasmonic nanolasers are a new class of laser devices which amplify surface plasmons instead of photons by stimulated emission. A plasmonic nanolaser cavity can lower the total cavity loss by suppressing radiation loss via the plasmonic field confinement …

Flexibly tunable surface plasmon resonance by strong mode coupling using a random metal nanohemisphere on mirror

Flexibly tunable surface plasmon resonance by strong mode coupling using a random metal nanohemisphere on mirror

We propose a unique random metal nanohemisphere on mirror (NHoM) structure to tune the surface plasmon (SP) resonance in a flexible manner. The SP resonance peak was split into two peaks owing to the strong coupling between the SP mode in the metal …

Dynamic tuning of enhanced intrinsic circular dichroism in plasmonic stereo-metamolecule array with surface lattice resonance

Dynamic tuning of enhanced intrinsic circular dichroism in plasmonic stereo-metamolecule array with surface lattice resonance

Enhancing the circular dichroism signals of chiral plasmonic nanostructures is vital for realizing miniaturized functional chiroptical devices, such as ultrathin wave plates and high-performance chiral biosensors. Rationally assembling individual plasmonic …

Directing Cherenkov photons with spatial nonlocality

Directing Cherenkov photons with spatial nonlocality

Cherenkov radiation in natural transparent materials is generally forward-propagating, owing to the positive group index of radiation modes. While negative-index metamaterials enable reversed Cherenkov radiation, the forward photon emission from a swift …

Narrow-frequency sharp-angular filters using all-dielectric cascaded meta-gratings

Narrow-frequency sharp-angular filters using all-dielectric cascaded meta-gratings

Selective transmission or filtering always responds to either frequency or incident angle, so as hardly to maximize signal-to-noise ratio in communication, detection and sensing. Here, we propose compact meta-filters of narrow-frequency sharp-angular …

Reconfigurable topological waveguide based on honeycomb lattice of dielectric cuboids

Reconfigurable topological waveguide based on honeycomb lattice of dielectric cuboids

We show that the photonic crystal (PhC) made of dielectric cuboids with their centers forming a honeycomb lattice is characterized by a Z2 topological index when the longer sides of six cuboids point towards the center of hexagonal unit cell. While the C6v …

Optical spin-dependent beam separation in cyclic group symmetric metasurface

Optical spin-dependent beam separation in cyclic group symmetric metasurface

Cross-polarization scattering of a circularly polarized beam from nano-rod introduces a geometric phase to the outgoing beam with opposite circular polarization. By manipulating the spatial array of subwavelength nano-structure constituting metasurface, the …

Helicity-delinked manipulations on surface waves and propagating waves by metasurfaces

Helicity-delinked manipulations on surface waves and propagating waves by metasurfaces

Although many approaches have been proposed to manipulate propagating waves (PWs) and surface waves (SWs), usually each operation needs a separate meta-device, being unfavorable for optical integrations. Here, we propose a scheme to design a single …