Plasmonic nano‐slits assisted polarization selective detour phase meta‐hologram

Traditional detour‐phase hologram is a powerful optical device for manipulating phase and amplitude of light, but it is usually not sensitive to the polarization of light. By introducing the light‐metasurface interaction mechanism to the traditional detour phase hologram, we design a novel plasmonic nano‐slits assisted polarization selective detour phase meta‐hologram, which has attractive advantages of polarization multiplexing ability, broadband response, and ultra‐compact size. The meta‐hologram relies on the dislocations of plasmonic slits to achieve arbitrary phase distributions, showing strong polarization selectivity to incident light due to the plasmonic response of deep‐subwavelength slits. To verify its polarization sensitive and broadband responses, we experimentally demonstrate two holographic patterns of an optical vortex and an Airy beam at p‐ and s‐polarized light with wavelengths of 532nm, 633nm and 780nm, respectively. Furthermore, we realize an application example of the meta‐hologram as a polarization multiplexed photonic device for multi‐channel optical angular momentum (OAM) generation and detection. Such meta‐holograms could find widespread applications in photonics, such as chip‐level beam shaping and high‐capacity OAM communication.

     

Surface enhanced Raman scattering of nano diamond using visible‐light‐activated TiO2 as a catalyst to photo‐reduce nano‐structured silver from AgNO3 as SERS‐active substrate

In this work, we demonstrate nano‐structured silver particles photo‐reduced from silver nitride (AgNO₃) solution using visible‐light‐activated titanium dioxide (TiO₂), which can be a convenient and effective substrate for surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) observation. Visible‐light‐activated carbon‐containing TiO₂ nanoparticles are applied to photo‐reduce and form nano‐structured silver from AgNO₃ upon visible‐light illumination. Photo‐reduced nano‐structured silver is used as an active substrate for SERS studies of TiO₂ as well as nano diamond and TiO₂. The photo reduction of AgNO₃ and SERS observation can be obtained by simultaneously using the same visible laser excitation. The coexistence of the anatase phase with small admixture of the rutile phase in the TiO₂ can be observed using SERS. The carbon structure in the carbon‐containing TiO₂ was determined to be sp² type carbon bonding by SERS. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Active dielectric metasurface based on phase‐change medium

We propose all‐dielectric metasurfaces that can be actively re‐configured using the phase‐change material Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ (GST) alloy. With selectively controlled phase transitions on the composing GST elements, metasurfaces can be tailored to exhibit varied functionalities. Using phase‐change GST rod as the basic building block, we have modelled metamolecules with tunable optical response when phase change occurs on select constituent GST rods. Tunable gradient metasurfaces can be realized with variable supercell period consisting of different patterns of the GST rods in their amorphous and crystalline states. Simulation results indicate a range of functions can be delivered, including multilevel signal modulating, near‐field coupling of GST rods, and anomalous reflection angle controlling. This work opens up a new space in exploring active meta‐devices with broader applications that cannot be achieved in their passive counterparts with permanent properties once fabricated.

     

电磁超表面在微波和太赫兹波段雷达散射截面缩减中的应用研究进展

电磁超表面由于其独特的电磁特性为调控电磁波提供了有力工具,合适地设计成编码、随机、相位不连续、完美吸收器等超表面,就能够控制电磁波的散射以及反射特性,实现雷达散射截面的缩减。本文综述了不同的电磁超表面利用漫反射或者吸收等特性实现在微波和太赫兹波段雷达散射截面缩减中的应用。分析表明,编码超表面由不同的数字单元组成,其反射相位差在很宽的频段范围内满足恒定的关系,设计特殊的单元序列使入射的电磁波产生非定向散射,更高bit编码超表面更容易灵活调控电磁波;随机超表面通过调节阵元的尺寸实现宽带移相从而将金属目标特征性强的反射峰打散成一个无规律、杂乱的波,产生漫反射;不连续超表面由于相位不连续可使电磁波发生漫反射或者异常反射;吸收器通过合理设计结构尺寸实现吸收电磁波能量来减小反射。因此电磁超表面在雷达隐身、宽带通讯、成像等方面具有重要的应用前景。最后对电磁超表面在雷达散射截面缩减中应用的发展趋势进行了初步探讨,未来将向着宽带、柔性、大角度等方面发展。     

High‐transmission dielectric metasurface with 2π phase control at visible wavelengths

Recently, metasurfaces have received increasing attention due to their ability to locally manipulate the amplitude, phase and polarization of light with high spatial resolution. Transmissive metasurfaces based on high‐index dielectric materials are particularly interesting due to the low intrinsic losses and compatibility with standard industrial processes. Here, it is demonstrated numerically and experimentally that a uniform array of silicon nanodisks can exhibit close‐to‐unity transmission at resonance in the visible spectrum. A single‐layer gradient metasurface utilizing this concept is shown to achieve around 45% transmission into the desired order. These values represent an improvement over existing state‐of‐the‐art, and are the result of simultaneous excitation and mutual interference of magnetic and electric‐dipole resonances in the nanodisks, which enables directional forward scattering with a broad bandwidth. Due to CMOS compatibility and the relative ease of fabrication, this approach is promising for creation of novel flat optical devices.

     

Bifunctional Pancharatnam‐Berry Metasurface with High‐Efficiency Helicity‐Dependent Transmissions and Reflections

Manipulating circularly‐polarized (CP) waves in desired multi‐prescribed manners, especially in both transmission and reflection schemes, in a single flat device is of particular importance in photonic integration, imaging processing and communication systems. However, available approaches suffer from large thickness, low efficiencies as well as limited wavefront control spaces. Here, we propose a general strategy by using specially tailored Pancharatnam‐Berry (PB) meta‐atoms with helicity‐dependent transmissions and reflections to design high‐efficiency CP bifunctional metasurfaces. As a proof of the strategy, two metadevices are designed and characterized at microwave frequencies: the former one achieving focusing/diverging lenses at transmission/reflection side of the metasurface; the latter one realizing CP beam separation under illuminations of CP waves with different chirality, respectively. Both numerical and experimental results demonstrate the predicted EM functionalities, and all these functionalities exhibit very high efficiencies (88%～94%). Our findings afford a new route to design high‐performance CP bi‐functional metasurfaces operating in other frequency domains or with other functionalities.     

Antireflection ln2O3 coatings of self‐organized TiO2 nanotube layers prepared by atomic layer deposition

We report on the uniform anti‐reflection coating of TiO₂ nanotube layers with a secondary material – indium trioxide (In₂O₃) – by atomic layer deposition (ALD). We provide for the first time the detailed evidence of the ALD deposited coating inside nanotubes for three different tube layers with aspect ratio up to ≈80, which is so far the highest aspect ratio reported for ALD‐processed self‐organized anodic TiO₂ nanotubes. We show that uniform In₂O₃coating of the nanotubes strongly influences the overall reflectance of the layers due to intrinsic properties of In₂O₃. (© 2015 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH &Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Plasmonic Metasurfaces Enabled Ultra‐Compact Broadband Waveguide TM‐Pass Polarizer

Silicon waveguide polarizers offer a simple yet robust approach to address the polarization‐dependent issue of silicon‐based optical components, and hence have found numerous applications in silicon photonics. However, the available silicon waveguide polarizers suffer from the issue of large device footprint, high insertion loss (IL), and/or fabrication complexities. Here, a silicon waveguide transverse magnetic (TM)‐pass polarizer is constructed by coating a silicon waveguide with an ultra‐thin plasmonic metasurface structure that is capable of guiding slow surface wave (SW) mode. The transverse electric (TE) waveguide mode can be converted into SW mode with the involvement of metasurfaces, and hence is intrinsically absorbed and forbidden to pass, while the TM waveguide mode can be well guided due to little influence. A typical metasurface polarizer with an ultra‐short length of 2.4 µm enables the IL of 28.16 dB for the TE mode, and that of 0.53 dB for the TM mode at 1550 nm. Multiple‐band TM‐pass polarizers can be obtained by cascading two or more different metasurface‐coated silicon waveguides along the propagation direction, and a dual‐band TM‐pass polarizer is demonstrated with the IL being of 19.21 and 29.09 dB for the TE mode at 1310 and 1550 nm, respectively.     

High-efficiency reflection phase tunable metasurface at near-infrared frequencies

The realization of active modulation of reflection phase based on metasurfaces is of great significance for flexible control of electromagnetic wavefront, which makes metasurfaces have practical application values in polarization conversion, beam steering, metalens, etc. In this paper, a reflection phase tunable gap-surface plasmon(GSP) metasurface based on phase change materials Ge_2Sb_2Te_5(GST) is designed and experimentally demonstrated. By virtue of the characteristics of large permittivities difference before and after GST phase transition and the existence of stable intermediate states, the continuous modulation of near-infrared reflection phase larger than 200°has been realized. At the same time, through the reasonable design of the structure sizes, the reflection has been maintained at about 0.4 and basically does not change with the GST phase transition, which improved the working efficiency of the metasurface significantly. In addition, the coupled-mode theory(CMT) is introduced to make a full analysis of the modulation mechanism of the reflection phase,which proves that the phase transition of GST can induce the transition of metasurface working state from overcoupling mode to critical coupling mode. The improvement of the metasurface working efficiency has practical values for wavefront modulation.     

Geometric metasurface fork gratings for vortex‐beam generation and manipulation

In recent years, optical vortex beams possessing orbital angular momentum have received much attention due to their potential for high‐capacity optical communications. This capability arises from the unbounded topological charges of orbital angular momentum (OAM) that provide infinite freedoms for encoding information. The two most common approaches for generating vortex beams are through fork diffraction gratings and spiral phase plates. While realization of conventional spiral phase plate requires complicated 3D fabrication, the emerging field of metasurfaces has provided a planar and facile solution for generating vortex beams of arbitrary orbit angular momentum. Among various types of metasurfaces, the geometric phase metasurface has shown great potential for robust control of light‐ and spin‐controlled wave propagation. Here, we realize a novel type of geometric metasurface fork grating that seamlessly combine the functionality of a metasurface phase plate for vortex‐beam generation, and that of a linear phase gradient metasurface for controlling the wave‐propagation direction. The metasurface fork grating is therefore capable of simultaneously controlling both the spin and the orbital angular momentum of light.

     

宽入射角度偏振不敏感高效异常反射梯度超表面

偏振不敏感超表面在实际应用中具有重要意义, 本文提出了一种光通信波段的、对偏振不敏感的异常反射式梯度超表面, 这种超表面对于x-偏振和y-偏振入射光都能够实现高效率的异常反射, 表现出偏振不敏感特性, 为解决传统反射式超表面的偏振敏感性问题提供了一种新途径. 它采用金属(Au)-绝缘层(SiO₂)-金属(Au)结构, 超表面的超晶胞由五个各向同性的、尺寸不同的十字形基本结构单元组成. 仿真结果表明, 这种超表面结构对不同线偏振入射平面光波有几乎相同的相位和振幅响应; 合理的选取五个基本结构单元的尺寸, 在一个超晶胞内实现了2πup 相位的覆盖, 反射光波阵面畸变小, 而且反射光都集中到异常反射级次, 在工作波长1480 nm处具有较高的异常反射率(～ 70%). 此外, 这种结构的超表面在-30°–0°的宽入射角度范围内都具有偏振不敏感的异常反射特性. 在光通信、光信号处理、显示成像等领域具有潜在的应用前景.     

Highly tunable elastic dielectric metasurface lenses

Dielectric metasurfaces are two‐dimensional structures composed of nano‐scatterers that manipulate the phase and polarization of optical waves with subwavelength spatial resolution, thus enabling ultra‐thin components for free‐space optics. While high performance devices with various functionalities, including some that are difficult to achieve using conventional optical setups have been shown, most demonstrated components have fixed parameters. Here, we demonstrate highly tunable dielectric metasurface devices based on subwavelength thick silicon nano‐posts encapsulated in a thin transparent elastic polymer. As proof of concept, we demonstrate a metasurface microlens operating at 915 nm, with focal distance tuning from 600 μm to 1400 μm (over 952 diopters change in optical power) through radial strain, while maintaining a diffraction limited focus and a focusing efficiency above 50%. The demonstrated tunable metasurface concept is highly versatile for developing ultra‐slim, multi‐functional and tunable optical devices with widespread applications ranging from consumer electronics to medical devices and optical communications.

     

宽频带雷达散射截面缩减相位梯度超表面的设计及实验验证

针对相位梯度超表面在隐身技术中的应用,提出通过表面波耦合和异常反射两种机制复合实现宽频带后向雷达散射截面(RCS)缩减,采用开口谐振环进行相位梯度设计,实现了一种二维极化无关相位梯度超表面,在10 GHz附近,超表面通过将垂直入射电磁波耦合为表面波实现RCS缩减,而在大于11 GHz的频率范围内,相位分布的不均匀性使垂直入射的电磁波发生漫反射或者异常反射,降低后向RCS,制作了厚度为2 mm的超表面样品,测试了其反射率曲线和后向RCS,并与相同尺寸的金属板进行了对比,实验结果表明,在宽频段内(9.5—17.0 GHz),超表面在垂直入射情况下可将后向RCS缩减至少10 dB,由于厚度薄、重量轻、频带宽,RCS缩减超表面在隐身新材料和新技术方面具有很大的应用潜力。     

Mu-near-zero metasurface for microstrip-fed slot antennas

A mu-near-zero metasurface as a superstrate consisting of a periodically square closed ring is proposed for gain and bandwidth enhancement of microstrip-fed slot antennas (MFSAs). The metasurface exhibits near-zero permeability (0<μ<1) and negative reflection phase. For a unidirectional radiation pattern, the metasurface above the MFSA is employed to reduce the back-lobe radiation (180^°) and enhance the gain at 0^° without a metallic reflector. Interestingly, if additional metasurfaces are placed on both sides of the MFSA, a low-profile, high-gain and wide-band bidirectional antenna can be obtained. The results indicate that the metasurface can also enhance the radiation characteristics, impedance bandwidth and efficiency. Both simulation and measurement of the proposed antennas with metasurface show a fractional bandwidth of 25 % and the overall thicknesses of λ ₀/12 and λ ₀/6 of uni- and bidirectional antennas, respectively.     

Asymmetrical photonic spin Hall effect based on dielectric metasurfaces

The photonic spin Hall effect has attracted considerable research interest due to its potential applications in spin-controlled nanophotonic devices. However, realization of the asymmetrical photonic spin Hall effect with a single optical element is still a challenge due to the conjugation of the Pancharatnam-Berry phase, which reduces the flexibility in various applications. Here, we demonstrate an asymmetrical spin-dependent beam splitter based on a single-layer dielectric metasurface exhibiting strong and controllable optical response. The metasurface consists of an array of dielectric nanofins, where both varying rotation angles and feature sizes of the unit cells are utilized to create high-efficiency dielectric metasurfaces, which enables to break the conjugated characteristic of phase gradient. Thanks to the superiority of the phase modulation ability, when the fabricated metasurface is under normal incidence with a wavelength of 1550 nm, the left-handed circular polarization (LCP) light exhibits an anomalous refraction angle of 28.9°, while the right-handed circular polarization (RCP) light transmits directly. The method we proposed can be used for the flexible manipulation of spin photons and has potentials in high efficiency metasurfaces with versatile functionalities, especially with metasurfaces in a compact space.     

Study on the photocatalytic activity of TiN/TiO2 nanoparticle formed by ball milling

TiN/TiO₂ nanoparticle photocatalyst was prepared by ball milling of TiO₂ in H₂O solution doped with TiN. The photocatalyst was characterized by UV–Vis diffuse reflection spectroscopy, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Based on the results of the characterization, the mechanism of the increase in photocatalytic activity was investigated. The results show that when the amount of doped TiN is 0.15 wt%, the photocatalytic activity of the TiN/TiO₂ is at its peak. Compared with TiO₂, the photoabsorption wavelength range of the TiN/TiO₂ photocatalyst red-shifts about 30 nm, and the photoabsorption intensity increases as well. The photocatalytic activities of the photocatalyst are higher than that of TiO₂ under UV and visible light irradiation. The increase of surface Ti³⁺ reactive center and the extension of the photoabsorption wavelength are the main factors for the increase in the photocatalytic activity of the TiN/TiO₂. Doped TiN neither changes the TiO₂ crystal phase nor creates new crystal phase by ball milling.     

Silicon multi‐meta‐holograms for the broadband visible light

The dielectric metasurface hologram promises higher efficiencies due to lower absorption than its plasmonic counterpart. However, it has only been used, up to now, for controlling linear‐polarization photons to form single‐plane holographic images in the near‐infrared region. Here, we report a transmission‐type metahologram achieving images in three colors, free from high‐order diffraction and twin‐image issues, with 8‐level modulation of geometric phase by controlling photon spin via precisely patterned Si nanostructures with varying orientations. The resulting real and virtual holographic images with spin dependence of incident photons natively enable the spin degeneracy removal of light, leading to a metahologram‐enabled spin Hall effect of light. Low‐absorption dielectrics also enable us to create holograms for short‐wavelength light down to 480 nm, thus spanning the three primary colors. It possesses the potential for compact color‐display chips using mature semiconductor processes, and holds significant advantages over previous metaholograms operating at longer wavelengths.

     

Fabrication and characterization of CdS-sensitized TiO<Subscript>2</Subscript> nanotube photoelectrode

CdS quantum dot (Qd)-sensitized TiO₂ nanotube array photoelectrode is synthesised via a two-step method on tin-doped In₂O₃-coated (ITO) glass substrate. TiO₂ nanotube arrays are prepared in the ethylene glycol electrolyte solution by anodizing titanium films which are deposited on ITO glass substrate by radio frequency sputtering. Then, the CdS Qds are deposited on the nanotubes by successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction technique. The resulting nanotube arrays are characterized by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV–visible absorption spectroscopy. The length of the obtained nanotubes reaches 1.60 μm and their inner diameter and wall thickness are around 90 and 20 nm, respectively. The XRD results show that the as-prepared TiO₂ nanotubes array is amorphous, which are converted to anatase TiO₂ after annealed at 450 °C for 2 h. The CdS Qds deposited on the TiO₂ nanotubes shift the absorption edge of TiO₂ from 388 to 494 nm. The results show that the CdS-sensitized TiO₂ nanotubes array film can be used as the photoelectrode for solar cells.     

Effect of TiO2 crystalline composition on the dielectric properties of TiO2/P(VDF‐TrFE) composites

In order to study the effect of the TiO₂ particle crystalline composition (with different proportions of rutile and anatase crystals) on the dielectric properties of the composite, titanium dioxide (TiO₂) particles and TiO₂/poly(vinylidene fluoride‐co‐trifluoroethylene) [P(VDF‐TrFE)] composites were synthesized by a reflux method and the solution route, respectively. The results indicated that the optimum TiO₂ particle crystalline composition is anatase content of 37% and rutile content of 63% for dielectric‐constant modifier applications. Furthermore, a dielectric constant of 25.7 with dielectric loss of 0.17 at 100 Hz at room temperature were obtained in the composite with 40 wt% TiO₂ particles. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Photon‐nanosieve for ultrabroadband and large‐angle‐of‐view holograms

Holography is of great interest for both scientific research and industry applications, but it has always suffered from the strong dependence on wavelength and polarization of the incident light. Having revisited the Huygens–Fresnel principle, we propose a novel holography mechanism by elaborately choosing discrete point sources (PSs) and realize it experimentally by mimicking the radiated fields of these PSs through carefully designed photon‐nanosieves. Removing the modulation dispersion usually existing in traditional and metasurface holograms, our hologram empowers the simultaneous operation throughout the ultraviolet, entire visible and near‐infrared wavelength regions without polarization dependence. Due to the deep‐subwavelength dimension of nanosieves, this robust hologram offers a large angle‐of‐view of 40°×40° and possesses a lensing effect under a spherical‐wave illumination, which can work as a high‐resolution, lens‐less and distortion‐free microprojector that displays a 260× magnified image. It might open an avenue to a high‐tolerance holographic technique for electromagnetic and acoustic waves.