Near- and far-field investigation of dark and bright higher order resonances in square loop elements at mid-infrared wavelengths.

Three different size gold square loop structures were fabricated as arrays on ZnS over a ground plane and designed to have absorptive fundamental, second order, and third order resonances at a wavelength of 10.6 µm and 60° off-normal. The angular dependent far-field spectral absorptivity was investigated over the mid-infrared for each size loop array. It was found that the second order modes were dark at normal incidence, but became excited at off-normal incidence, which is consistent with previous work for similar geometry structures. Furthermore, near-field measurements and simulations at a wavelength of 10.6 µm and 60° off-normal showed that the second order mode (quadrupolar) of the medium size loop yielded a near-field response similar in magnitude to the fundamental mode (dipolar) of the small size loop, which can be important for sensing related applications where both strong near-field enhancement and more uniform or less localized field is beneficial.

Near-field investigation of the effect of the array edge on the resonance of loop frequency selective surface elements at mid-infrared wavelengths.

Mid-infrared scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy, in combination with far-field infrared spectroscopy, and simulations, was employed to investigate the effect of mutual-element coupling towards the edge of arrays of loop elements acting as frequency selective surfaces (FSSs). Two different square loop arrays on ZnS over a ground plane, resonant at 10.3 µm, were investigated. One array had elements that were closely spaced while the other array had elements with greater inter-element spacing. In addition to the dipolar resonance, we observed a new emergent resonance associated with the edge of the closely-spaced array as a finite size effect, due to the broken translational invariance.

Tight control of light beams in photonic crystals with spatially-variant lattice orientation.

Spatially-variant photonic crystals (SVPCs), in which the orientation of the unit cell changes as a function of position, are shown to be capable of abruptly controlling light beams using just low index materials and can be made to have high polarization selectivity. Multi-photon direct laser writing in the photo-polymer SU-8 was used to fabricate three-dimensional SVPCs that direct the flow of light around a 90 degree bend. The lattice spacing and fill factor were maintained nearly constant throughout the structure. The SVPCs were characterized at a wavelength of 2.94 µm by scanning the faces with optical fibers and the results were compared to electromagnetic simulations. The lattices were shown to direct infrared light of one polarization through sharp bends while the other polarization propagated straight through the SVPC. This work introduces a new scheme for controlling light that should be useful for integrated photonics.

Array truncation effects in infrared frequency selective surfaces.

A metasurface consisting of an infinite array of square loops was designed for maximal absorptivity for s-polarized light at a wavelength of 10.6 µm and 60 degrees off-normal. We investigate the effects of array truncation in finite arrays of this design using far-field FTIR spectroscopy and scattering scanning near-field optical microscopy. The far-field spectra are observed to blue-shift with decreasing array size. The near-field images show a corresponding decrease in uniformity of the local electric field amplitude and phase spatial distributions. Simulations of the far-field absorption spectra and local electric field are consistent with the measured results.

Near- and far-field spectroscopic imaging investigation of resonant square-loop infrared metasurfaces.

Optical metamaterials have unique properties which result from geometric confinement of the optical conductivity. We developed a series of infrared metasurfaces based on an array of metallic square loop antennas. The far-field absorption spectrum can be designed with resonances across the infrared by scaling the geometric dimensions. We measure the amplitude and phase of the resonant mode as standing wave patterns within the square loops using scattering-scanning near-field optical microscopy (s-SNOM). Further, using a broad-band synchrotron-based FTIR microscope and s-SNOM at the Advanced Light Source, we are able to correlate far-field spectra to near-field modes of the metasurface as the resonance is tuned between samples. The results highlight the importance of multi-modal imaging for the design and characterization of optical metamaterials.