Effects of shape of terminus on excitation of surface plasmon modes on metal nanowires

The effects of the shape of a nanowire terminus on the excited surface plasmon polariton （SPP） modes are investigated. The conical terminus and terminus cut at a certain angle are studied. For the first time, the quantitative mode decompositions are carried out to derive the full information about excited SPP modes. It is demonstrated that tuning the shape of the terminus provides an effective method to control the composition of excited SPP modes on metal nanowires. It is especially found that some important patterns, such as the pure TM0 mode and the superposition of TM0 and HE＋1 or HE-1 modes, can be generated by some specific shapes of the terminus, whereas there is no way to produce these patterns using flat-end nanowires.     

从plasmon到nanoplasmonics——近代光子学前沿及液晶在其动态调制中的应用

本综述首先较为系统地介绍了近代光子学的一个重要分支——纳米等离子激元学(nanoplasmonics)中有关基础概念的物理、光学背景及推动该学科的演绎发展脉络. 这包括由在平滑界面上的光学表面波(optical surface wave)从物理上导出表面等离子激元(surface plasmon polariton, SPP)的概念, 再由粗糙表面及较大金属颗粒对SPP的影响, 引出线度远小于光波长的纳米金属颗粒与光电磁波的相互作用的结果: 本地表面等离子激元(localized surface plasmon polariton)的存在, 亦即纳米等离子激元学的基础. 在简介了纳米等离子激元学器件系统如何在诸多领域突破了传统光学的束缚, 演绎开辟出了近代光学研究的许多特异的新领域后, 特别关注了近期迅速发展并引起越来越多关注的可调制的纳米等离子激元学(tuneable nanoplasmonics)器件的领域. 液晶材料在光学响应方面特有的可调制特性, 使其在纳米等离子激元学器件的调制中成为一个具有非常实用意义的探索方向. 本综述介绍了这方面研究的最新进展, 并对存在的挑战及可能的发展方向等也进行了相应的探讨.     

Deterministic aperiodic nanostructures for photonics and plasmonics applications

This review focuses on the optical properties and device applications of deterministic aperiodic media generated by mathematical rules with spectral features that interpolate in a tunable fashion between periodic crystals and disordered random media. These structures are called Deterministic Aperiodic Nano Structures (DANS) and can be implemented in different materials (linear and nonlinear) and physical systems as diverse as dielectric multilayers, optical gratings, photonic waveguides and nanoparticle arrays. Among their distinctive optical properties are the formation of multi‐fractal bandgaps and characteristic optical resonances, called critical modes, with unusual localization, scaling and transport properties. The goal of the paper is to provide a detailed review of the conceptual foundation and the physical mechanisms governing the complex optical response of DANS in relation to the engineering of novel devices and functionalities. The discussion will mostly focus on passive and active planar structures with enhanced light‐matter coupling for photonics and plasmonics technologies.     

十字结构银纳米线的表面等离极化激元分束特性

金属纳米线波导可以将光局域在亚波长尺度内传播, 在纳米光子集成回路方面有着重要的作用. 本文应用有限元方法, 研究了十字结构银纳米线的表面等离极化激元分束特性. 结果表明, 不同模式的表面等离极化激元在十字结构三个分支的输出依赖于端面的几何结构参数. 此外, 研究还发现由于不同模式表面等离极化激元叠加, 在十字结构的分支上出现了周期性电场分布.     

基于耦合介质纳米线的深亚波长局域波导

提出了一种基于耦合介质纳米线的深亚波长局域波导,通过两根紧邻的高折射率介质纳米线的耦合,该波导可以将光场有效束缚在纳米线之间的低折射率纳米缝隙中. 计算模拟的结果表明,该波导的有效模场面积达到Λ²₀/200,比单根纳米线波导小一个数量级,这种深亚波长的模场束缚能力可以与表面等离激元混合波导相比拟. 计算模拟的结果还表明,纳米线可能带有的低折射率氧化膜、低折射率衬底的存在、以及纳米线间尺寸存在的一定差异对于该波导结构的实际应用都不会产生很大 关键词： 介质波导 亚波长局域 表面等离激元波导 纳米线     

Plasmonic leaky‐mode lasing in active semiconductor nanowires

Leaky modes are below‐cutoff waveguide modes that lose part of their energy to the continuum of radiation modes during propagation. In photonic nanowire lasers, leaky modes have to compete with almost lossless above‐cutoff modes and are therefore usually prevented from crossing the lasing threshold. The situation is drastically different in plasmonic nanowire systems where the above‐cutoff plasmonic modes are very lossy because of their strong confinement to the metal surface. Due to gain guiding, the threshold gain of the hybrid electric leaky mode does not increase strongly with reduced wire diameter and stays below that of all other modes, making it possible to observe leaky‐mode lasing. Plasmonic ZnO nanowire lasers operating in the gain‐guided regime could be used as coherent sources of surface plasmon polaritons at the nanoscale or as surface plasmon emitting diodes with an emission angle that depends on the nanowire diameter and the color of the surface plasmon polariton.

     

Influence of polarization direction, incidence angle, and geometry on near-field enhancement in two-layered gold nanowires

The influences of polarization direction, incidence angle, and geometry on near-field enhancements in two-layered gold nanowires (TGNWs) have been investigated by using the vector wave function method. When the polarization direction is perpendicular to the incidence plane, the local field factor (LFF) in TGNW decreases first and then increases with the increase in the incidence angle. The minimum LFF is observed at an incidence angle of 41°. It is found that the increase in the dielectric constant of the inner core leads to a decrease in the LFF. With the increase in the inner core radius, the LFF in TGNW increases first and then decreases, and the maximum LFF is observed at an inner core radius of 27 nm. On the other hand, when the polarization direction is parallel to the incidence plane, the collective motions of the induced electrons are enhanced gradually with the decrease in the incidence angle, and hence the near-field enhancement is increased.     

五边形截面的Ag纳米线局域表面等离子体共振模式

五边形截面的单晶Ag纳米线对ZnO量子点荧光具有增强的现象. 为解释这一现象, 利用时域有限差分法对五边形截面的Ag纳米线的局域表面等离子体共振模式进行了理论模拟. 结果表明, 五边形截面的Ag纳米线在紫外区域存在两个消光峰, 分别由Ag纳米线的横向偶极共振(340 nm)和四极共振(375 nm)引起; 这两个消光峰与ZnO量子点荧光增强峰相一致, 而且随着Ag纳米线的半径增大而红移; 消光峰对应的共振模式取决于Ag纳米线的截面形状; 根据Ag纳米线电场增强倍数与激发光波长变化关系曲线可知, 最大增强电场位于五边形截面的顶点处, 而边线处电场增强较小. 理论模拟的结果较好地解释了Ag纳米线/ZnO量子点体系的荧光增强现象, 也为Ag纳米线在提高半导体材料发光效率、生物探测等方面的应用提供有益的参考.     

Confocal white light reflection imaging for characterization of metal nanostructures

A simple far-field confocal white light reflection imaging system was proposed using a xenon (Xe) lamp as the incident light source. The best spatial resolution was determined to be about 410 nm. Localized surface plasmons (LSPs) of isolated single and dimer gold nanospheres were studied and the resonance energy difference between their LSPs was extracted. Polarization dependent reflection imaging and contrast spectrum of single silver nanowires were also investigated, which correlate closely with the polarization dependent excitation of their LSP.     

Improving the performance of a GaAs nanowire photodetector using surface plasmon polaritons

GaAs nanowires (NWs) are ideal materials for preparing near-infrared photodetectors owing to their high charge carrier mobility and direct band gap. Although the performance of GaAs NW photodetectors can be enhanced by surface passivation or doping, it still cannot meet the requirement for applications. In this paper we propose a method to greatly improve the performances of GaAs NW photodetectors by hot-hole injection via surface plasmon polaritons. In this case, the responsivity of a single GaAs NW photodetector is increased by a fact of 3.2 to 6.56 A· W^-1 by attaching capsule-like Au nanoparticles to its surface. This research uses an efficient route to improve the NW photocurrent, which is also important for the development of a high-performance near-infrared NW photodetecor.     

Design and analysis of a vertical directional coupler between a three-dimensional plasmonic slot waveguide and a silicon waveguide

The design of a vertical directional coupler between a three-dimensional plasmonic slot waveguide and a silicon waveguide is theoretically investigated in detail. It consists of two steps: the design of isolated plasmonic slot waveguide and silicon waveguide and the determination of the gap between the two waveguides and the length of a coupling region. The designed structure transfers 70.8% of the power carried by the silicon waveguide mode to the plasmonic slot waveguide mode when the gap is 150 nm and the coupling length is 2.14 μm. The wavelength dependence of our vertical directional coupler is also studied. The analysis shows that the amount of the transferred power changes slightly over a very wide wavelength range between 1.40 μm and 1.61 μm. Moreover, if we employ the fabrication technology for silicon photonics, it is quite tolerant to the variation of the length of its coupling section. Finally, the vertical directional coupler is considered for a polarizer.     

Highly Efficient Excitation of Surface Plasmons Using a Si Gable Tip

A compact and highly efficient technique to excite SPP mode at an Au/SiO₂ interface by using an engineered high index (silicon) gabled tip at the 1550 nm wavelength has been proposed. The optimized geometry of the Si tip enables a highly efficient excitation of the single interface SPP mode through near field interaction in an ultra‐compact setup. An experimental demonstration of the proposed scheme is also presented in the paper which converts 25.5% of the total input power to an SPP mode. With an improved fabrication, this efficiency can reach as high as 52%. The device is compact, facilitates on‐chip excitation of the SPP, its fabrication is compatible with the standard Si fabrication processes, and, as such it is expected to be very useful in the design of future integrated photonic circuits as well as integrated sensors. Also, this scheme can find applications in studying nonlinear characteristics of materials.     

生物医学光子学在糖尿病视网膜病变中的应用进展

随着我国社会经济的发展及国人饮食、生活习惯的改变,糖尿病的发病率呈逐年上升趋势。糖尿病视网膜病变(Diabetic Retinopathy,DR)作为糖尿病最为常见的并发症,已成为视力下降甚至致盲的主要原因之一。通过对其早期诊断和及时治疗,超过50%的患者的视力损伤及致盲可得到预防。因此,研究DR的诊断和治疗方法具有重要的临床意义。由于眼部的结构及光学特性,生物医学光子学技术在DR的临床诊断和治疗中已得到了非常广泛的应用并且具有巨大的发展前景。本文综述了目前临床上用于DR诊断和治疗的主要生物医学光子学技术的原理及其最新应用进展,并分析对比了各个技术的特点,最后总结并展望了生物医学光子学技术在临床DR诊断和治疗的发展趋势。     

A long-range hybrid THz plasmonic waveguide with low attenuation loss

Numerical solutions are obtained for the proposed novel hybrid terahertz plasmonic waveguide structure, namely the silicon metal silicon (SMS) waveguide. It is shown that the SMS waveguide can overcome the diffraction limit while still maintaining a sizeable propagation length. The geometric dependence of the mode characteristics of this structure is analyzed in detail, showing strong confinement and low loss with propagation lengths exceeding 14 mm at normalized mode areas of 1.72 × 10⁻². By using the FEM method (Comsol), the guiding properties of the hybrid terahertz surface plasmon polariton (HTSPP) waveguide are numerically analyzed at the THz frequency, and a combination of double-structured comparisons of the best features of the terahertz plasmonic waveguide is made. Depending on the height used and how the mode confinement is measured, various modal designs, such as double microwire structures, are developed. The structures indicate that we verified the possibility of low attenuation loss of hybrid THz plasmonics propagation. The effective mode area A_eff, energy distribution, and propagation length L_p versus height for waveguides with Si microwire and SiO₂ are shown. The numerical calculation results reveal a potential for use in applications such as optical force in trapping and transporting biomolecules, and in high-density integrated circuits.     

Integrated microwave photonics

Microwave photonics (MWP) is an emerging field in which radio frequency (RF) signals are generated, distributed, processed and analyzed using the strength of photonic techniques. It is a technology that enables various functionalities which are not feasible to achieve only in the microwave domain. A particular aspect that recently gains significant interests is the use of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology in the MWP field for enhanced functionalities and robustness as well as the reduction of size, weight, cost and power consumption. This article reviews the recent advances in this emerging field which is dubbed as integrated microwave photonics. Key integrated MWP technologies are reviewed and the prospective of the field is discussed.     

采用银纳米圆盘阵列提高LED发光特性的研究

为了提高GaN基蓝光LED的发光效率,设计了在LED有源层上方引入银纳米圆盘阵列的模型。利用时域有限差分方法计算了银纳米圆盘阵列不同结构参数情况下LED有源层自发辐射率的变化情况及光提取效率值。通过对有源区的近场分布和LED远场方向性的分析,理论上解释了利用该金属纳米结构生成的表面等离激元对LED性能增强的影响,利用该模型可使得表面等离激元与有源层有效耦合,从而增强有源层的自发辐射率。此外,银纳米粒子组成的阵列结构所生成的栅格矢量可以补偿表面等离激元的波矢量,从而可将局域化表面等离激元转为辐射性表面等离激元,显著提高LED顶端光提取效率。结果表明,当银纳米圆盘颗粒满足直径为120nm,厚度为30nm时,含该结构的GaN基蓝光LED自发辐射率比普通LED增强了3.6倍。在此基础上,当其按照晶格常数为220nm的三角晶格排列时,顶端光提取效率增强为2.5倍。这些结果为实际的高性能GaN基LED的设计与优化提供了一定的参考。     

硅基集成光量子芯片技术

光量子芯片技术采用传统半导体微纳加工工艺,可在单个芯片上集成大量光量子器件,实现量子信息处理应用,具有高集成度、高精确度、高稳定性等优势。基于硅基集成光学技术的硅基光量子芯片,得益于其CMOS可兼容、非线性效应强、超高集成度等特点,在未来实现可实用化大规模光量子计算与信息处理应用方面展示出巨大潜力。文章对硅基集成光量子芯片技术进行介绍,包括硅基集成光学基础器件,硅基光量子芯片上光子的产生、操控和探测等技术,以及面向量子计算及量子信息处理应用方面大规模硅基光量子芯片技术的近期进展,并对面临的技术挑战与发展方向进行展望。     

Surface Plasmon Polariton Fizeaus Dragging: via Relative Rotational Sensing

A new scheme focusing on the surface plasmon polariton interferometry between the metal and dielectric interface is introduced. The phase shift is measured by using surface plasmon polariton wave, generated at the interface of metallic and dielectric media. The phase shift of SPPs is modi?ed under phase and amplitude control of complex conductivity for interferometry. The control ?elds strongly in?uence the phase shift of SPPs for detection of molecular motion. The phase shift of SPPs is further modi?ed by Plasmon polariton Fizeaus dragging effect. We measure 20%–25%fractional change in delay and their phases shift between two left and right SPPs modes. Our results may have signi?cant applications in sensor interferometer technology.     

Theoretical study of photon emission from single quantum dot emitter coupled to surface plasmons

Motivated by the recent pioneering advances on nanoscale plasmonics and also nanophotonics technology based on the surface plasmons (SPs), in this work, we give a master equation model in the Lindblad form and investigate the quantum optical properties of single quantum dot (QD) emitter coupled to the SPs of a metallic nanowire. Our main results demonstrate the QD luminescence results of photon emission show three distinctive regimes depending on the distance between QD and metallic nanowire, which elucidates a crossover passing from being metallic dissipative for much smaller emitter-nanowire distances to surface plasmon (SP) emission for larger separations at the vicinity of plasmonic metallic nanowire. Besides, our results also indicate that, for both the resonant case and the detuning case, through measuring QD emitter luminescence spectra and second-order correlation functions, the information about the QD emitter coupling to the SPs of the dissipative metallic nanowire can be extracted. This theoretical study will serve as an introduction to understanding the nanoplasmonic imaging spectroscopy and pave a new way to realize the quantum information devices.     

Optical interaction in a plasmonic metallic particle chain coupled to a metallic film

We study the coupling of localized surface plasmon and surface plasmon polariton modes in a system composed of a metallic nanoparticle chain imbedded in a dielectric–metal–dielectric substrate. The results show the influence of outside parts and imbedded parts of particles on the interaction between localized surface plasmon and surface plasmon polariton modes. An enhancement can be observed in our structure. This kind of the structure has a very promising candidate for biosensing and surface enhanced spectroscopy applications.