Nanofabrication: the unsung hero in enabling advances in nanophotonics
Nanophotonics plays an important role in driving innovation in a growing number of fields over the last several decades. Many of the innovations that impact our daily lives, e.g. microscopy, biosensors, miniaturized spectrometers, imaging, and displays, are …
Broadband spin-multiplexed single-celled metasurface holograms: a comprehensive comparison between different strategies
Metasurface-generated holograms have emerged as a unique platform for arbitrarily shaping the reflected/transmitted wavefronts with the advantages of subwavelength large pixel sizes and multiple information channels. However, achieving multiple holographic …
Three-dimensionally reconfigurable focusing of laser by mechanically tunable metalens doublet with built-in holograms for alignment
Metalenses have potential to replace various bulky conventional optical elements with ultrathin nanostructure arrays. In particular, active metalenses with reconfigurable focusing capability have attracted considerable interest from the academic and …
Reversible electrical switching of nanostructural color pixels
Electrical switching of nanophotonic structural color elements is a promising approach towards addressable color switching pixels for next generation reflective displays. However, electrical switching between the primary colors to colorless near-white state …
Electrically switchable metallic polymer metasurface device with gel polymer electrolyte
We present an electrically switchable, compact metasurface device based on the metallic polymer PEDOT:PSS in combination with a gel polymer electrolyte. Applying square-wave voltages, we can reversibly switch the PEDOT:PSS from dielectric to metallic. Using …
Telecom single-photon emitters in GaN operating at room temperature: embedment into bullseye antennas
The ideal single-photon source displaying high brightness and purity, emission on-demand, mature integration, practical communication wavelength (i.e., in the telecom range), and operating at room temperature does not exist yet. In 2018, a new single-photon …
Gap solitons on an integrated CMOS chip
Nonlinear propagation in periodic media has been studied for decades, yielding demonstrations of numerous phenomena including strong temporal compression and slow light generation. Gap solitons, that propagate at frequencies inside the stopband, have been …
Guided domino lithography for uniform fabrication of single-digit-nanometer scale plasmonic nanoantenna
Single-digit-nanometer scale plasmonic nanoantenna platforms are widely used in optical sensors, quantum plasmonics, and other applications. Uniform and reliable fabrications with a single-digit-nanometer resolution are desirable for diverse quantum …
Semiconductor lasers with integrated metasurfaces for direct output beam modulation, enabled by innovative fabrication methods
Semiconductor lasers play critical roles in many different systems, ranging from optical communications to absorption spectroscopy for environmental monitoring. Despite numerous applications, many semiconductor lasers have problems such as significant beam …
Nano-kirigami enabled chiral nano-cilia with enhanced circular dichroism at visible wavelengths
Nano-kirigami method enables rich diversity of structural geometries that significantly broaden the functionalities of optical micro/nano-devices. However, the methodologies of various nano-kirigami are still limited and as a result, the chiral nano-kirigami …
Fabrication of quantum dot and ring arrays by direct laser interference patterning for nanophotonics
Epitaxially grown semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) and quantum rings (QRs) have been demonstrated to be excellent sources of single photons and entangled photon pairs enabling applications within quantum photonics. The emerging field of QD-based nanophotonics …
Defining the zerogap: cracking along the photolithographically defined Au–Cu–Au lines with sub-nanometer precision
Cracks are formed along the photolithographically pre-determined lines with extremely high yield and repeatability, when Cu clusters are introduced between planarized Au thin films sequentially deposited on a PET substrate. These clusters act as …
Digital laser-induced printing of MoS_2
Due to their atomic-scale thickness, handling and processing of two-dimensional (2D) materials often require multistep techniques whose complexity hampers their large-scale integration in modern device applications. Here we demonstrate that the laser-induced …
lambda/20 surface nanostructuring of ZnO by mask-less ultrafast laser processing
Fabrication of nanostructures with a feature size much smaller than the laser wavelength is challenging due to the optical diffraction limit. It’s well known that the irradiation of polarized ultrafast laser generates periodic nanostructures, so called …
Circularly symmetric nanopores in 3D femtosecond laser nanolithography with burst control and the role of energy dose
The fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures within optical materials is currently a highly sought-after capability. Achieving nanoscale structuring of media within its inner volume in 3D and with free design flexibility, high accuracy and …
Multi-photon polymerization using upconversion nanoparticles for tunable feature-size printing
The recent development of light-based 3D printing technologies has marked a turning point in additive manufacturing. Through photopolymerization, liquid resins can be solidified into complex objects. Usually, the polymerization is triggered by exciting a …
3D nanopolymerization and damage threshold dependence on laser wavelength and pulse duration
The dependence of the polymerization and optical damage thresholds in multi-photon polymerization (MPP) lithography was studied using a broadly-tunable laser system with group delay dispersion (GDD) control. The order of non-linearity and the light–matter …
Direct laser writing of 3D metallic mid- and far-infrared wave components
A method for direct fabrication of 3D silver microstructures with high fabrication throughput on virtually any substrate is presented. The method is based on laser-induced photoreduction of silver ions to silver atoms, supported by nucleation, substrate …
Highly conformable terahertz metasurface absorbers via two-photon polymerization on polymeric ultra-thin films
The continuously increasing interest in flexible and integrated photonics requires new strategies for device manufacturing on arbitrary complex surfaces and with smallest possible size, respectively. Terahertz (THz) technology can particularly benefit from …
Photo-activated polymerization inhibition process in photoinitiator systems for high-throughput 3D nanoprinting
The systems for multiphoton 3D nanoprinting are rapidly increasing in print speed for larger throughput and scale, unfortunately without also improvement in resolution. Separately, the process of photoinhibition lithography has been demonstrated to enhance …
Colloidal self-assembly based ultrathin metasurface for perfect absorption across the entire visible spectrum
Perfect absorption over the entire visible spectrum can create a dark background for acquiring images with high contrast and improved resolution, which is crucial for various applications such as medical imaging, biological detection, and industrial …
Enhanced electrochromic switching contrast in the blue by 3,4-propylenedioxypyrrole – implementation on structural colors
Recent advances in nanofabrication technologies have enabled new ways to produce structural colors. By combining nanofabrication methods, it is possible to integrate electrochromic materials with the nanostructures, which enable electrical tuning of the …
Redeposition-free inductively-coupled plasma etching of lithium niobate for integrated photonics
Lithium niobate on insulator is being established as a versatile platform for a new generation of photonic integrated devices. Extensive progress has been made in recent years to improve the fabrication of integrated optical circuits from a research platform …
Deuterated SiNx: a low-loss, back-end CMOS-compatible platform for nonlinear integrated optics
Silicon nitride (SiN) has surged into prominence as a material for photonic-integrated circuits (PICs) in the past decade, well regarded for its broadband transparency, compatibility with complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) fabrication processes …
A universal metasurface transfer technique for heterogeneous integration
Metasurfaces offer a versatile platform for engineering the wavefront of light using nanostructures with subwavelength dimensions and hold great promise for dramatically miniaturizing conventional optical elements due to their small footprint and broad …