Experimental demonstration and stochastic modeling of autonomous formation of nanophotonic droplets

We have previously demonstrated a novel technique for autonomously forming a nanophotonic droplet, which is micro-scale spherical polymer structure that contains paired heterogeneous nanometric components. The sort-selectivity and alignment accuracy of the nanometric components in each nanophotonic droplet, and the related homogeneity of the optical function, are due to a characteristic pairing process based on a phonon-assisted photo-curing method. The proposed method requires irradiating a mixture of components with light to induce optical near-field interactions between each component, and subsequent processes based on these interactions. The pairing yield of components via the interactions is considered to mainly depend on the frequency of their encounters and the size-resonance effect between encountered components. In this paper, we model these two factors by individual stochastic procedures and construct a numerical model to describe the pairing process. Agreement between the results of numerical and experimental demonstrations shows the validity of our stochastic modeling.