Issue 15 (2020)

Electron-driven photon sources for correlative electron-photon spectroscopy with electron microscopes

Electron-driven photon sources for correlative electron-photon spectroscopy with electron microscopes

Electron beams in electron microscopes are efficient probes of optical near-fields, thanks to spectroscopy tools like electron energy-loss spectroscopy and cathodoluminescence spectroscopy. Nowadays, we can acquire multitudes of information about nanophotonic …

Tunable optical metasurfaces enabled by multiple modulation mechanisms

Tunable optical metasurfaces enabled by multiple modulation mechanisms

With their ultrathin characteristics as well as the powerful and flexible capabilities of wavefront modulation, optical metasurfaces have brought a new understanding of the interaction between light and matter and provided a powerful way to constrain and …

Multipolar and bulk modes: fundamentals of single-particle plasmonics through the advances in electron and photon techniques

Multipolar and bulk modes: fundamentals of single-particle plasmonics through the advances in electron and photon techniques

Recent developments in the application of plasmonic nanoparticles have showcased the importance of understanding in detail their plasmonic resonances at the single-particle level. These resonances can be excited and probed through various methods, which can …

Nanophotonics for bacterial detection and antimicrobial susceptibility testing

Nanophotonics for bacterial detection and antimicrobial susceptibility testing

Photonic biosensors are a major topic of research that continues to make exciting advances. Technology has now improved sufficiently for photonics to enter the realm of microbiology and to allow for the detection of individual bacteria. Here, we discuss the …

Topological phases in ring resonators: recent progress and future prospects

Topological phases in ring resonators: recent progress and future prospects

Topological photonics has emerged as a novel paradigm for the design of electromagnetic systems from microwaves to nanophotonics. Studies to date have largely focused on the demonstration of fundamental concepts, such as nonreciprocity and waveguiding …

Broadband enhancement of second-harmonic generation at the domain walls of magnetic topological insulators

Broadband enhancement of second-harmonic generation at the domain walls of magnetic topological insulators

We show that the second-harmonic generation (SHG) is enhanced in the chiral one-dimensional electron currents in a broad frequency range. The origin of the enhancement is twofold: first, the linear dispersion of the quasiparticles and the associated plasmonic …

Solar-blind ultraviolet photodetector based on vertically aligned single-crystalline β-Ga2O3 nanowire arrays

Solar-blind ultraviolet photodetector based on vertically aligned single-crystalline β-Ga2O3 nanowire arrays

Vertically aligned nanowire arrays, with high surface-to-volume ratio and efficient light-trapping absorption, have attracted much attention for photoelectric devices. In this paper, vertical beta-Ga2O3 nanowire arrays with an average diameter/height of …

Amplification by stimulated emission of nitrogen-vacancy centres in a diamond-loaded fibre cavity

Amplification by stimulated emission of nitrogen-vacancy centres in a diamond-loaded fibre cavity

Laser threshold magnetometry using the negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy (NV?) centre in diamond as a gain medium has been proposed as a technique to dramatically enhance the sensitivity of room-temperature magnetometry. We experimentally explore a …

Graphene-coupled nanowire hybrid plasmonic gap mode–driven catalytic reaction revealed by surface-enhanced Raman scattering

Graphene-coupled nanowire hybrid plasmonic gap mode–driven catalytic reaction revealed by surface-enhanced Raman scattering

The single-layer graphene (SLG)-coupled nanowire (NW) hybrid plasmonic gap mode (PGM)-driven molecular catalytic reaction was investigated experimentally and theoretically. First, an SLG-coupled NW was constructed, then the surface-enhanced Raman scattering …

Simultaneous implementation of antireflection and antitransmission through multipolar interference in plasmonic metasurfaces and applications in optical absorbers and broadband polarizers

Simultaneous implementation of antireflection and antitransmission through multipolar interference in plasmonic metasurfaces and applications in optical absorbers and broadband polarizers

Metasurfaces have been widely used to control beam propagation e.g. transmission, reflection, and absorption on an interface through a thin layer of nanoantennas with the thickness smaller than the wavelength. However, previous study of metasurfaces typically …

Strong electro-optic absorption spanning nearly two octaves in an all-fiber graphene device

Strong electro-optic absorption spanning nearly two octaves in an all-fiber graphene device

An efficient electro-optic transition control is reported in all-fiber graphene devices over a broad spectral range from visible to near-infrared. The ion liquid–based gating device fabricated onto a side-polished fiber with high numerical aperture …

Three-dimensional spatiotemporal tracking of nano-objects diffusing in water-filled optofluidic microstructured fiber

Three-dimensional spatiotemporal tracking of nano-objects diffusing in water-filled optofluidic microstructured fiber

Three-dimensional (3D) tracking of nano-objects represents a novel pathway for understanding dynamic nanoscale processes within bioanalytics and life science. Here we demonstrate 3D tracking of diffusing 100 nm gold nanosphere within a water-filled …

Controllable nonlinear optical properties of different-sized iron phosphorus trichalcogenide (FePS3) nanosheets

Controllable nonlinear optical properties of different-sized iron phosphorus trichalcogenide (FePS3) nanosheets

Two-dimensional iron phosphorus trichalcogenide (FePS3) has attracted significant attention for its use in electricity, magnetism and optical fields due to its outstanding physical and chemical properties. Herein, FePS3 was prepared using the chemical vapor …

Fourier-plane investigation of plasmonic bound states in the continuum and molecular emission coupling

Fourier-plane investigation of plasmonic bound states in the continuum and molecular emission coupling

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) or trapped modes can provide an important new avenue for strong light confinement via destructive interference. Dielectric photonic structures have been extensively studied for optical BICs. However, BICs in plasmonic …

Wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM)-based integrated electronic–photonic switching network (EPSN) for high-speed data processing and transportation

Wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM)-based integrated electronic–photonic switching network (EPSN) for high-speed data processing and transportation

Integrated photonics offers attractive solutions for realizing combinational logic for high-performance computing. The integrated photonic chips can be further optimized using multiplexing techniques such as wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). In this …

A simple Mie-resonator based meta-array with diverse deflection scenarios enabling multifunctional operation at near-infrared

A simple Mie-resonator based meta-array with diverse deflection scenarios enabling multifunctional operation at near-infrared

Deflection, a basic functionality of wavefront manipulation is usually associated with the phase-gradient metasurfaces and the classical blazed gratings. We numerically and experimentally demonstrate an unusually wideband and simultaneously wide-angle …

Free-standing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membrane for salt-rejecting solar desalination via size effect

Free-standing reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membrane for salt-rejecting solar desalination via size effect

Interfacial solar vapor generation has revived the solar-thermal-based desalination due to its high conversion efficiency of solar energy. However, most solar evaporators reported so far suffer from severe salt-clogging problems during solar desalination, …

Broadband dispersive free, large, and ultrafast nonlinear material platforms for photonics

Broadband dispersive free, large, and ultrafast nonlinear material platforms for photonics

Broadband dispersion free, large and ultrafast nonlinear material platforms comprise the essential foundation for the study of nonlinear optics, integrated optics, intense field optical physics, and quantum optics. Despite substantial research efforts, such …

Strong spin–orbit interaction of photonic skyrmions at the general optical interface

Strong spin–orbit interaction of photonic skyrmions at the general optical interface

Photonic skyrmions have applications in many areas, including the vectorial and chiral optics, optical manipulation, deep-subwavelength imaging and nanometrology. Much effort has been focused on the experimental characterization of photonic skyrmions. Here, …