SiC transmission-type polarization rotator using a large magneto-optical effect boosted and stabilized by dressed photons.

This paper reports the fabrication and operation of a transmission-type polarization rotator for visible light with a wavelength of 450 nm using indirect-transition-type semiconductor crystalline SiC in which Al atoms were implanted as a p-type dopant. A novel dressed-photon-phonon (DPP)-assisted annealing method was used for fabrication. The fabricated device exhibited a gigantic magneto-optical effect induced by interactions between photons, electrons, phonons, and magnetic fields in a nanometric space, mediated by dressed photons. The optical path length for polarization rotation was as short as the thickness of the p-n junction. It operated with a weak magnetic field on the order of mT, generated by injecting current to a ring-shaped electrode on the device surface. The Verdet constant was as large as 9.51 × 104 rad/T.m at a wavelength of 450 nm. SQUID measurements confirmed that the SiC crystal exhibited conspicuous ferromagnetic characteristics as a result of the DPP-assisted annealing. In this device, the dressed photons boosted the magnitude of the magneto-optical effect and stabilized the device operation of the polarization rotator.

Current-induced giant polarization rotation using a ZnO single crystal doped with nitrogen ions.

Giant polarization rotation in a ZnO single crystal was experimentally demonstrated based on a novel phenomenon occurring at the nanometric scale. The ZnO crystal was doped with N(+) and N(2+) ions serving as p-type dopants. By applying an in-plane current using a unique arrangement of electrodes on the device, current-induced polarization rotation of the incident light was observed. From the results of experimental demonstrations and discussions, it was verified that this novel behavior originates from a specific distribution of dopants and the corresponding light-matter interactions in a nanometric space, which are allowed by the existence of such a dopant distribution.

Design, implementation and characterization of a quantum-dot-based volumetric display.

In this study, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a volumetric display system based on quantum dots (QDs) embedded in a polymer substrate. Unlike conventional volumetric displays, our system does not require electrical wiring; thus, the heretofore unavoidable issue of occlusion is resolved because irradiation by external light supplies the energy to the light-emitting voxels formed by the QDs. By exploiting the intrinsic attributes of the QDs, the system offers ultrahigh definition and a wide range of colours for volumetric displays. In this paper, we discuss the design, implementation and characterization of the proposed volumetric display's first prototype. We developed an 8 × 8 × 8 display comprising two types of QDs. This display provides multicolour three-type two-dimensional patterns when viewed from different angles. The QD-based volumetric display provides a new way to represent images and could be applied in leisure and advertising industries, among others.

Observation and analysis of structural changes in fused silica by continuous irradiation with femtosecond laser light having an energy density below the laser-induced damage threshold.

The laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) is widely used as an index for evaluating an optical component's resistance to laser light. However, a degradation in the performance of an optical component is also caused by continuous irradiation with laser light having an energy density below the LIDT. Therefore, here we focused on the degradation in performance of an optical component caused by continuous irradiation with femtosecond laser light having a low energy density, i.e., laser-induced degradation. We performed an in situ observation and analysis of an increase in scattering light intensity in fused silica substrates. In experiments conducted using a pulsed laser with a wavelength of 800 nm, a pulse width of 160 fs and pulse repetition rate of 1 kHz, we found that the scattered light intensity increased starting from a specific accumulated fluence, namely, that the laser-induced degradation had a threshold. We evaluated the threshold fluence F t as 6.27 J/cm(2) and 9.21 J/cm(2) for the fused silica substrates with surface roughnesses of 0.20 nm and 0.13 nm in R a value, respectively, showing that the threshold decreased as the surface roughness increased. In addition, we found that the reflected light spectrum changed as degradation proceeded. We analyzed the details of the degradation by measuring instantaneous reflectance changes with a pump-probe method; we observed an increase in the generation probability of photogenerated carriers in a degraded silica substrate and a damaged silica substrate and observed a Raman signal originating from a specific molecular structure of silica. From these findings, we concluded that compositional changes in the molecular structure occurred during degradation due to femtosecond laser irradiation having an energy density below the LIDT.

Randomness in highly reflective silver nanoparticles and their localized optical fields.

Reflection of near-infrared light is important for preventing heat transfer in energy saving applications. A large-area, mass-producible reflector that contains randomly distributed disk-shaped silver nanoparticles and that exhibits high reflection at near-infrared wavelengths was demonstrated. Although resonant coupling between incident light and the nanostructure of the reflector plays some role, what is more important is the geometrical randomness of the nanoparticles, which serves as the origin of a particle-dependent localization and hierarchical distribution of optical near-fields in the vicinity of the nanostructure. Here we show and clarified the unique optical near-field processes associated with the randomness seen in experimentally fabricated silver nanostructures by adapting a rigorous theory of optical near-fields based on an angular spectrum and detailed electromagnetic calculations.

Chaotic oscillation and random-number generation based on nanoscale optical-energy transfer.

By using nanoscale energy-transfer dynamics and density matrix formalism, we demonstrate theoretically and numerically that chaotic oscillation and random-number generation occur in a nanoscale system. The physical system consists of a pair of quantum dots (QDs), with one QD smaller than the other, between which energy transfers via optical near-field interactions. When the system is pumped by continuous-wave radiation and incorporates a timing delay between two energy transfers within the system, it emits optical pulses. We refer to such QD pairs as nano-optical pulsers (NOPs). Irradiating an NOP with external periodic optical pulses causes the oscillating frequency of the NOP to synchronize with the external stimulus. We find that chaotic oscillation occurs in the NOP population when they are connected by an external time delay. Moreover, by evaluating the time-domain signals by statistical-test suites, we confirm that the signals are sufficiently random to qualify the system as a random-number generator (RNG). This study reveals that even relatively simple nanodevices that interact locally with each other through optical energy transfer at scales far below the wavelength of irradiating light can exhibit complex oscillatory dynamics. These findings are significant for applications such as ultrasmall RNGs.

Nano-artifact metrics based on random collapse of resist.

Artifact metrics is an information security technology that uses the intrinsic characteristics of a physical object for authentication and clone resistance. Here, we demonstrate nano-artifact metrics based on silicon nanostructures formed via an array of resist pillars that randomly collapse when exposed to electron-beam lithography. The proposed technique uses conventional and scalable lithography processes, and because of the random collapse of resist, the resultant structure has extremely fine-scale morphology with a minimum dimension below 10 nm, which is less than the resolution of current lithography capabilities. By evaluating false match, false non-match and clone-resistance rates, we clarify that the nanostructured patterns based on resist collapse satisfy the requirements for high-performance security applications.

Novel wavelength conversion with nanophotonic droplet consisting of coupled quantum dots.

The concept of nanophotonic droplets, which are individual spherical polymer structures containing accurately coupled heterogeneous quantum dots, has been previously demonstrated. Such combinations are theoretically promising for their ability to induce novel optical functions. In this paper, we focus on the implementation of wavelength conversion as one of the fundamental optical functions of nanophotonic droplets. A novel mechanism involved in the formation of nanophotonic droplets and results of experimental verification of wavelength conversion using formed nanophotonic droplets are described. By a quantitative comparison with a corresponding sample consisting of randomly dispersed quantum dots, the effectiveness of proposal was successfully demonstrated.

Challenges in realizing ultraflat materials surfaces.

Ultraflat surface substrates are required to achieve an optimal performance of future optical, electronic, or optoelectronic devices for various applications, because such surfaces reduce the scattering loss of photons, electrons, or both at the surfaces and interfaces. In this paper, we review recent progress toward the realization of ultraflat materials surfaces. First, we review the development of surface-flattening techniques. Second, we briefly review the dressed photon-phonon (DPP), a nanometric quasiparticle that describes the coupled state of a photon, an electron, and a multimode-coherent phonon. Then, we review several recent developments based on DPP-photochemical etching and desorption processes, which have resulted in angstrom-scale flat surfaces. To confirm that the superior flatness of these surfaces that originated from the DPP process, we also review a simplified mathematical model that describes the scale-dependent effects of optical near-fields. Finally, we present the future outlook for these technologies.

Optical near-field-mediated polarization asymmetry induced by two-layer nanostructures.

We demonstrate that a two-layer shape-engineered nanostructure exhibits asymmetric polarization conversion efficiency thanks to near-field interactions. We present a rigorous theoretical foundation based on an angular-spectrum representation of optical near-fields that takes account of the geometrical features of the proposed device architecture and gives results that agree well with electromagnetic numerical simulations. The principle used here exploits the unique intrinsic optical near-field processes associated with nanostructured matter, while eliminating the need for conventional scanning optical fiber probing tips, paving the way to novel nanophotonic devices and systems.

Decision maker based on nanoscale photo-excitation transfer.

Decision-making is one of the most important intellectual abilities of the human brain. Here we propose an efficient decision-making system which uses optical energy transfer between quantum dots (QDs) mediated by optical near-field interactions occurring at scales far below the wavelength of light. The simulation results indicate that our system outperforms the softmax rule, which is known as the best-fitting algorithm for human decision-making behaviour. This suggests that we can produce a nano-system which makes decisions efficiently and adaptively by exploiting the intrinsic spatiotemporal dynamics involving QDs mediated by optical near-field interactions.

Amoeba-inspired nanoarchitectonic computing: solving intractable computational problems using nanoscale photoexcitation transfer dynamics.

Biologically inspired computing devices and architectures are expected to overcome the limitations of conventional technologies in terms of solving computationally demanding problems, adapting to complex environments, reducing energy consumption, and so on. We previously demonstrated that a primitive single-celled amoeba (a plasmodial slime mold), which exhibits complex spatiotemporal oscillatory dynamics and sophisticated computing capabilities, can be used to search for a solution to a very hard combinatorial optimization problem. We successfully extracted the essential spatiotemporal dynamics by which the amoeba solves the problem. This amoeba-inspired computing paradigm can be implemented by various physical systems that exhibit suitable spatiotemporal dynamics resembling the amoeba's problem-solving process. In this Article, we demonstrate that photoexcitation transfer phenomena in certain quantum nanostructures mediated by optical near-field interactions generate the amoebalike spatiotemporal dynamics and can be used to solve the satisfiability problem (SAT), which is the problem of judging whether a given logical proposition (a Boolean formula) is self-consistent. SAT is related to diverse application problems in artificial intelligence, information security, and bioinformatics and is a crucially important nondeterministic polynomial time (NP)-complete problem, which is believed to become intractable for conventional digital computers when the problem size increases. We show that our amoeba-inspired computing paradigm dramatically outperforms a conventional stochastic search method. These results indicate the potential for developing highly versatile nanoarchitectonic computers that realize powerful solution searching with low energy consumption.

Information physics fundamentals of nanophotonics.

Nanophotonics has been extensively studied with the aim of unveiling and exploiting light-matter interactions that occur at a scale below the diffraction limit of light, and recent progress made in experimental technologies--both in nanomaterial fabrication and characterization--is driving further advancements in the field. From the viewpoint of information, on the other hand, novel architectures, design and analysis principles, and even novel computing paradigms should be considered so that we can fully benefit from the potential of nanophotonics. This paper examines the information physics aspects of nanophotonics. More specifically, we present some fundamental and emergent information properties that stem from optical excitation transfer mediated by optical near-field interactions and the hierarchical properties inherent in optical near-fields. We theoretically and experimentally investigate aspects such as unidirectional signal transfer, energy efficiency and networking effects, among others, and we present their basic theoretical formalisms and describe demonstrations of practical applications. A stochastic analysis of light-assisted material formation is also presented, where an information-based approach provides a deeper understanding of the phenomena involved, such as self-organization. Furthermore, the spatio-temporal dynamics of optical excitation transfer and its inherent stochastic attributes are utilized for solution searching, paving the way to a novel computing paradigm that exploits coherent and dissipative processes in nanophotonics.

Demonstration of modulatable optical near-field interactions between dispersed resonant quantum dots.

We experimentally demonstrated the basic concept of modulatable optical near-field interactions by utilizing energy transfer between closely positioned resonant CdSe/ZnS quantum dot (QD) pairs dispersed on a flexible substrate. Modulation by physical flexion of the substrate changes the distances between quantum dots to control the magnitude of the coupling strength. The modulation capability was qualitatively confirmed as a change of the emission spectrum. We defined two kinds of modulatability for quantitative evaluation of the capability, and an evident difference was revealed between resonant and non-resonant QDs.

Lower bound of energy dissipation in optical excitation transfer via optical near-field interactions.

We theoretically analyzed the lower bound of energy dissipation required for optical excitation transfer from smaller quantum dots to larger ones via optical near-field interactions. The coherent interaction between two quantum dots via optical near-fields results in unidirectional excitation transfer by an energy dissipation process occurring in the larger dot. We investigated the lower bound of this energy dissipation, or the intersublevel energy difference at the larger dot, when the excitation appearing in the larger dot originated from the excitation transfer via optical near-field interactions. We demonstrate that the energy dissipation could be as low as 25 µeV. Compared with the bit flip energy of an electrically wired device, this is about 104 times more energy efficient. The achievable integration density of nanophotonic devices is also analyzed based on the energy dissipation and the error ratio while assuming a Yukawa-type potential for the optical near-field interactions.

Site-selective deposition of gold nanoparticles using non-adiabatic reaction induced by optical near-fields.

In this paper, we report on site-selective deposition of metal nanoparticles using a non-adiabatic photochemical reaction. Photoreduction of gold was performed in a silica gel membrane containing tetrachloroaurate (AuCl(4)( - )) ions, using ZnO nanorods as the sources of optical near-field light, resulting in deposition of gold nanoparticles with an average diameter of 17.7 nm. The distribution of distances between the gold nanoparticles and nanorod traces revealed that the gold nanoparticles were deposited adjacent to the ZnO nanorods, reflecting the attenuation of the optical near-fields in the vicinity of the ZnO nanorods. We found that the emission wavelength from the ZnO nanorods was longer than the absorption edge wavelength of the tetrachloroaurate. Additionally, from the intensity distribution obtained by a finite-difference time-domain method, the gold deposited around the ZnO nanorods was found to be due to a non-adiabatic photochemical reaction.

Nanophotonic code embedded in embossed hologram for hierarchical information retrieval.

A hierarchical hologram works in both optical far-fields and near-fields, the former being associated with conventional holographic images, and the latter being associated with the optical intensity distribution based on a nanometric structure that is accessible only via optical near-fields. We propose embedding a nanophotonic code, which is retrievable via optical near-field interactions involving nanometric structures, within an embossed hologram. Due to the one-dimensional grid structure of the hologram, evident polarization dependence appears in retrieving the code. Here we describe the basic concepts, numerical simulations, and experimental results in fabrication of a prototype hierarchical hologram and describe its optical characterization.

Quadrupole-dipole transform based on optical near-field interactions in engineered nanostructures.

Nanophotonics has the potential to provide novel devices and systems with unique functions based on optical near-field interactions. Here we experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, what we call a quadrupole-dipole transform achieved by optical near-field interactions between engineered nanostructures. We describe its principles, the nanostructure design, fabrication of one- and two-layer gold nanostructures, an experimental demonstration, and optical characterization and analysis.

Hierarchical hologram based on optical near- and far-field responses.

A "hierarchical hologram" and experiments using it are described. This type of hologram works both in optical far-fields and near-fields.We exploit the physical difference between the propagating light and optical near-field, where the former is associated with conventional holographic patterns obtained in optical far-fields, whereas the latter is associated with nanometric structure accessible only via optical near-fields. We also describe an experimental demonstration of the basic principles with our prototype optical elements.

Tamper resistance in optical excitation transfer based on optical near-field interactions.

We present tamper resistance in optical excitation transfer via optical near-field interactions based on the energy dissipation process occurring locally in nanometric devices such as quantum dots. A theoretical comparison with electrical systems is also shown, focusing on the required environmental conditions. Numerical simulations based on virtual photon models demonstrate high tamper resistance.