Fabrication of Gold Nano‐Structures with Azopolymer Templates

Fabrication of gold nano‐patterns has been demonstrated employing surface relief structures created on films of an azobenzene‐functionalized polymer as templates. The surface relief templates were photoinscribed on the azopolymer films in one‐step with two laser beams. Thin layers of gold were over‐coated on the polymer templates by thermal evaporation. Gold lines of a few hundred nanometer width were successfully fabricated by pyrolyzing the azobenzene polymer. Sub‐micron gold dots were also created. The resulting gold structures exhibited the same periodicity as the polymer templates.     

Controllable alignment of liquid crystals based on the surface relief gratings from a photocross-linkable organic monomer

The orientational control of liquid crystal (LC) molecules is essential for high-quality liquid crystal displays, and the photo-induced surface relief grating (SRG) is a facile and effective non-contact process. Here, SRGs with different period and depth were prepared with a photocross-linkable organic monomer 4-propyldiphenylacetylenecarboxylic acid cinnamyl ester (PDACE), and the LC alignment induced by SRG was studied. It is found that both the surface topography and the chemical nature of the surface are responsible for the LC alignment, which is strongly dependent on the groove geometry of the gratings. Furthermore, the patterned LC cell was fabricated with the patterned SRG surface. These results demonstrate that the planar, perpendicular and patterned orientations of LC can be easily photo-controllably obtained with PDACE, which have important applications in optical devices.     

Electro-disclinic effect in tilted smectic phases of banana-shaped liquid crystal materials

We give the first evidence that the director tilt angle can be reduced by electric fields in the tilted smectic phase of banana-shaped molecules. In these phases the value of polarization is determined by the molecular packing and no electro-clinic effect is expected. Our studies show that high electric fields eventually induce a meta-stable phase with zero director tilt. The tilted phase slowly recovers at low fields. We propose that the field-induced quenching of the layer fluctuations is responsible for the observed effects.     

Multiple plasmonic effect on photocurrent generation of metal‐loaded titanium dioxide composite/dye films on gold grating surface

We demonstrate the multiple plasmonic effect on the photocurrent properties of photoanodes containing Ag or Au nanoparticles (NPs) loaded onto titanium dioxide film (Ag–TiO₂ or Au–TiO₂) on Au grating surfaces. Ag–TiO₂ or Au–TiO₂ nanocomposite particles are prepared by a flame spray pyrolysis route. The structures and morphologies of the prepared products are characterized by high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy. The Ag–TiO₂ or Au–TiO₂ composite NPs are deposited by spin coating onto the Au grating surfaces. The photoanode electrode is a layered structure of blu‐ray disc‐recordable grating substrate/Au/Ag (or Au)–TiO₂/dye/electrolyte/indium‐tin oxide. The plasmonic effect is induced when Ag or Au NPs are located within the propagating surface plasmon (SP) field on the Au grating surface. The short‐circuit photocurrent is increased by exciting the grating‐coupled propagating SP on the Au gratings and is further enhanced by positioning the Ag or Au NPs within the grating‐coupled SP field. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Monolithically integrated 64‐channel silicon hybrid demultiplexer enabling simultaneous wavelength‐ and mode‐division‐multiplexing

A compact 64‐channel hybrid demultiplexer based on silicon‐on‐insulator nanowires is proposed and demonstrated experimentally to enable wavelength‐division‐multiplexing and mode‐division‐multiplexing simultaneously in order to realize an ultra‐large capacity on‐chip optical‐interconnect link. The present hybrid demultiplexer consists of a 4‐channel mode multiplexer constructed with cascaded asymmetrical directional‐couplers and two bi‐directional 17 × 17 arrayed‐waveguide gratings (AWGs) with 16 channels. Here each bi‐directional AWG is equivalent as two identical 1 × 16 AWGs. The measured excess loss and the crosstalk for the monolithically integrated 64‐channel hybrid demultiplexer are about ‐5 dB and ‐14 dB, respectively. Better performance can be achieved by minimizing the imperfections (particularly in AWGs) during the fabrication processes.

     

太赫兹波段Smith-Purcell辐射的介质加载光栅高频特性

提出了一种用于Smith-Purcell效应器件的介质加载光栅慢波结构,通过研究该结构的注-波互作用过程,推导出带电子注的色散方程,并数值求解出波的线性增长率.利用色散方程,结合电磁场传播的边界条件,推导出Smith-Purcell效应振荡器工作所需的起振电流.详细研究了高频结构长度、电子注主要参数和介质相对介电常数对起振电流的影响,并与普通金属光栅结构进行了比较.结果表明:保持其他参数不变时,高频结构长度越短,起振电流越大;保持高频结构参数不变时,起振电流随电子注厚度和注-栅距离的增大而增大,随电子注电压的增大而减小;与金属光栅相比,介质的引入提高了注-波互作用的增长率,有效减小了振荡器的起振电流.理论计算结果与软件CHIPIC的模拟结果比较符合.     

Theoretical study of surface plasmons coupling in transition metallic alloy 2D binary grating

The excitation of a surface plasmon polariton (SPP) wave on a metal–air interface by a 2D diffraction grating is numerically investigated. The grating consists of homogeneous alloys of two metals of a formula A_xB_1−x, or three metals of a formula A_xB_yC_z, where A, B and C could be silver (Ag), copper (Cu), gold (Au) or aluminum (Al).It is observed that all the alloys of two metals present a very small change of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) irrespective of composition x. Moreover, the addition of 25% of Al to two metals alloy is insufficient to change the SPR curves. The influence of the different grating parameters is discussed in details using rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) method. Furthermore, the SPR is highly dependent on grating periods (d_x and d_y) and the height of the grating h. The results reveal that d_x= d_y= 700 nm, h=40 nm and duty cycle w=0.5 are the optimal parameters for exciting SPP.     

In-plane ESPI using an achromatic interferometer with low-coherence laser source

The use of an achromatic interferometer is explored as a means of doing in-plane ESPI measurements using a laser diode as the light source. This interferometer type, which uses a diffraction grating in place of the conventional beamsplitter, has two features that make it suitable for making ESPI measurements over extended areas, even when using a low-coherence laser diode source. First, the parallelogram optical geometry of the interferometer causes all rays passing through to have the same optical path lengths. Second, the interferometer is achromatic, whereby the piezo-actuated mirror that steps the illumination light does so by the same phase angle, independent of wavelength. This latter feature accommodates the spectral impurity of a laser diode source. A periodic variation of fringe visibility is observed in experiments, where narrow ranges of high visibility occur at regular spatial intervals. This behavior derives from the clustered discrete spectral character of laser diode light output. A method to “tune” the interferometer by slightly rotating the diffraction grating is described so as to achieve consistent high fringe visibility throughout the measured images.     

Upgrade of beamline BL08B at Taiwan Light Source from a photon‐BPM to a double‐grating SGM beamline

During the last 20 years, beamline BL08B has been upgraded step by step from a photon beam‐position monitor (BPM) to a testing beamline and a single‐grating beamline that enables experiments to record X‐ray photo‐emission spectra (XPS) and X‐ray absorption spectra (XAS) for research in solar physics, organic semiconductor materials and spinel oxides, with soft X‐ray photon energies in the range 300–1000 eV. Demands for photon energy to extend to the extreme ultraviolet region for applications in nano‐fabrication and topological thin films are increasing. The basic spherical‐grating monochromator beamline was again upgraded by adding a second grating that delivers photons of energy from 80 to 420 eV. Four end‐stations were designed for experiments with XPS, XAS, interstellar photoprocess systems (IPS) and extreme‐ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) in the scheduled beam time. The data from these experiments show a large count rate in core levels probed and excellent statistics on background normalization in the L‐edge adsorption spectrum.     

980nm半导体激光器输出光谱特性的改善

为了改善980nm半导体激光器的输出光谱特性,采用传输矩阵分析法推导了双布喇格光纤光栅谐振腔的传输表达式,对布喇格光纤光栅长度和谐振腔腔长对输出光谱的影响进行模拟仿真,结果表明布喇格光纤光栅长度对输出光谱的影响大于谐振腔腔长对输出光谱的影响,加长布喇格光纤光栅长度能压缩输出光谱线宽.在980nm半导体激光器尾纤上写入不同布喇格光纤光栅长度的双布喇格光纤光栅谐振腔,验证了引入双布喇格光纤光栅谐振腔在压缩980nm半导体激光器输出光谱线宽的同时改善了其输出光谱的稳定性.当环境温度在0~75℃范围内变化时,980nm半导体激光器输出中心波长仅变化0.06nm.