Common-mode plasmon sensing scheme as a high-sensitivity compact SPR sensor.

A deep metal grating enables quasi-phase-matched simultaneous excitation of two counterpropagating surface plasmon modes by means of its +1st and -2nd diffraction orders. The resulting angular reflection spectra of the scattered -1st and zeroth orders exhibit three interleaved zeros and maxima in a range centered around the Littrow angle. The spectra differ thoroughly from the usual reflection dip resulting from single-order plasmon coupling that produces strong absorption. The zeroth and -1st orders exhibit two crossing angles enabling high-sensitivity common-mode detection schemes designed to reject variations in source power and environmental noise. The proof of concept and experimental assessment of this new surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing scheme are demonstrated by monitoring gases in a pressure-controlled chamber. A limit of detection (LOD) of 2 × 10-7 refractive index unit (RIU) was achieved.

Metal-coated concave cone in a fused-silica rod as a multi-function plasmonic element.

A collimated light beam parallel to the axis of a fused-quartz cylinder impinging on a 90° apex angle concave cone cut in a quartz rod is transformed into a cylindrical wave by total internal reflection. A thin metal film at the quartz-air interface enables excitation of the plasmon mode at the air side that can polarize the cylindrical wave and/or has the potential to monitor physical, chemical, or biological quantities or events at the inner wall of the cone. The present Letter first analyzes the plasmon coupling mechanism and conditions. It then describes the diamond-grinding technique achieving a smooth cone wall and the finest possible tip. The experimental evidence of the polarization conversion is brought on a diamond-grinded section of fused-silica rod and gold coating of the concave wall.

Effect of roughness on surface plasmons propagation along deep and shallow metallic diffraction gratings.

The roughness of shallow or deep metallic diffraction gratings modifies the propagation of surface plasmon mode along the metallic-air interface. The scattering losses lead to a spectral or angular broadening of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and to a shift of the resonance wavelength and coupling angle. This mechanism is deeply analyzed both experimentally and theoretically to overcome these effects when such structures, in particular deep ones, are used as SPR-based sensors.

Optical waveguide coupling and the golden number.

The numerical modeling of a directional coupler composed of four identical slab waveguides reveals that the ratio of the field extrema of the four propagating modes is close to the golden ratio ϕ. This is confirmed by an analytical derivation leading to the exact dispersion equation of the eigenmodes of the four-waveguide coupler and to the expression of the ratio between field extrema. A coupled wave analysis gives the analytical expression of the propagation constants of the coupler eigenmodes and of the ratio between extrema in terms of the coupling coefficients between waveguides; it shows that this ratio is strictly equal to ϕ in weakly coupled structures where the coupling coefficient between next-nearest neighboring waveguides is negligible.

Condensation phenomenon detection through surface plasmon resonance.

The aim of this work is to optically detect the condensation of acetone vapor on an aluminum plate cooled down in a two-phase environment (liquid/vapor). Sub-micron period aluminum based diffraction gratings with appropriate properties, exhibiting a highly sensitive plasmonic response, were successfully used for condensation experiments. A shift in the plasmonic wavelength resonance has been measured when acetone condensation on the aluminum surface takes place due to a change of the surrounding medium close to the surface, demonstrating that the surface modification occurs at the very beginning of the condensation phenomenon. This paper presents important steps in comprehending the incipience of condensate droplet and frost nucleation (since both mechanisms are similar) and thus to control the phenomenon by using an optimized engineered surface.

Transverse-mode selective resonant grating-mirrors for high power and high brightness emission.

The finite angular spectral width of a 2D resonant grating mirror is adjusted to select the fundamental transverse mode of a laser and to filter out higher order modes. The selection principle is explained phenomenologically on a simplified 1D model. The 2D design is made so as to sustain the large field concentration in the grating slab-waveguide mirror, and the technology permitting to obtain the resonant reflection within the gain bandwidth of two types of laser is described. The blank experimental measurements by means of a white light supercontinuum are shown to match the targeted specifications on the resonance spectral position and angular width.

Narrow band, large angular width resonant reflection from a periodic high index grid at terahertz frequency.

The property of a thin silicon membrane with periodic air slits of definite depth and width to exhibit under normal incidence a close to 100% ultra-narrow band reflection peak is demonstrated experimentally in the terahertz frequency range on a single-crystal silicon grid fabricated by submillimeter microsystem technology. An analysis based on the true modes supported by the grid reveals the nature of such resonances and permits to sort out those exhibiting ultra-narrow band.

Direct nanopatterning of 100 nm metal oxide periodic structures by Deep-UV immersion lithography.

Deep-UV lithography using high-efficiency phase mask has been developed to print 100 nm period grating on sol-gel based thin layer. High efficiency phase mask has been designed to produce a high-contrast interferogram (periodic fringes) under water immersion conditions for 244 nm laser. The demonstration has been applied to a new developed immersion-compatible sol-gel layer. A sol-gel photoresist prepared from zirconium alkoxides caped with methacrylic acids was developed to achieve 50 nm resolution in a single step exposure. The nanostructures can be thermally annealed into ZrO(2). Such route considerably simplifies the process for elaborating nanopatterned surfaces of transition metal oxides, and opens new routes for integrating materials of interest for applications in the field of photocatalysis, photovoltaic, optics, photonics or microelectronics.

High efficiency, high selectivity ultra-thin resonant diffractive elements.

Resonant diffractive elements as the association of a surface corrugation with a surface wave exhibit boosted diffraction efficiency and high selectivity properties under the effect of ultra-shallow subwavelength surface reliefs. This is demonstrated by four examples of resonant functional structures made of very different material systems over the optical spectrum. All four structures are fabricated by slow wet etching as the inherent lateral broadening in corrugations of very small aspect ratio can be neglected.

Azimuthally polarized laser mode generation by multilayer mirror with wideband grating-induced TM leakage in the TE stopband.

A new intracavity laser polarization-mode selection scheme relying upon a TE/TM diffractive dichroism principle in a grating multilayer mirror is proposed and demonstrated. The grating diffracts the first orders between the TE and TM band edges of the angular spectra of the laser mirror inducing a leakage of the TM polarization into the mirror substrate through the multilayer stack whereas TE diffraction into the substrate is forbidden. This mechanism is non-resonant, thus relatively wide-band. Applied with a circular-line grating in the 1.0 µm - 1.1 µm wavelength range, this mirror filters out the radially polarization mode and causes the emission of the azimuthally polarized mode. An original amorphous silicon grating technology was developed and the optical function demonstrated in a Nd:YAG laser.

Depth-minimized, large period half-wave corrugation for linear to radial and azimuthal polarization transformation by grating-mode phase management.

The transformation of the polarization distribution of a laser beam from linear to radial and azimuthal by means of a subwavelength binary corrugation etched in a high-index substrate faces fabrication difficulties and an inherent contradiction preventing the achievement of both conditions of 100% transmission and of π phase difference between polarization components. The contradiction is solved by resorting to an easily fabricable high-index corrugation on a low-index substrate where a larger period gives rise to grating-mode reflection/transmission phases that permit the fulfillment of both conditions with a depth-minimized corrugation. From the principle of the solution, a targeted numerical search gives the complete set of the corresponding shallow structures, achieving polarization rotation in a fitting analytical form versus normalized variables.

Parameter-tolerant binary gratings.

A normalized modal analysis of binary gratings under normal TE incidence involving the most condensed set of optogeometrical parameters gives a complete solution to the problem of canceling the 0(th) transmitted order in phase masks of a low-to-high refractive index ratio down to 0.5 with a large tolerance on the corrugation duty cycle or a large spectral bandwidth. The solution is presented in the form of single normalized 3D charts which shed light on the fulfillment of the 0(th)-order cancellation condition: balanced excitation and π-phase difference between two grating modes. Examples of tolerant gratings are given.

Integrated microinterferometric sensor for in-plane displacement measurement.

We present an integrated sensor based on a grating interferometer (GI) for in-plane displacement measurement in microregions of large engineering structures. The system concept and design, based on a monolithic version of Czarnek's GI, is discussed in detail. The technology chain of the GI measurement head (MH), including the master fabrication and further replication by means of hot embossing, is described. The numerical analyses of the MH by means of geometric ray tracing and scalar wave propagation are provided. They allow us to determine geometrical tolerance values as well as refractive index homogeneity and nonflatness of MH working surfaces, which provide proper beam guiding. Finally the demonstrative measurement performed with a model of the sensor is presented.

100 nm period grating by high-index phase-mask immersion lithography.

The interferogram of a high index phase mask of 200 nm period under normal incidence of a collimated beam at 244 nm wavelength with substantially suppressed zeroth order produces a 100 nm period grating in a resist film under immersion. The paper describes the phase mask design, its fabrication, the effect of electron-beam lithographic stitching errors and optical assessment of the fabricated sub-cutoff grating.

Ellipsometric retrieval of the phenomenological parameters of a waveguide grating.

Ellipsometry gives access to the phenomenological parameters of a grating coupled slab waveguide structure and permits its functional modeling without a priori knowledge of the geometry of the structure. The evidence is shown by comparing with the exact electromagnetic modeling of a sliced cross-section of a singlemode grating waveguide biosensor chip cut by FIB and analyzed by SEM.

Miniature holistic displacement sensor by immersion diffractive interferometry.

High interference contrast is obtained in a miniature dual-grating transmission displacement sensor submitted to an essentially uniform light flood of arbitrary polarization with multifunctional liquid film between gratings.

Ultrashort laser pulse splitting upon resonant reflection on a mirror-based waveguide grating.

A resonant waveguide grating based on a high reflectivity mirror causes a 2pi phaseshift of adjustable slope in the spectrum of an ultrashort light pulse, giving rise to a controllable, lossless temporal pulse splitting. This monolithic phase shifter can simply be placed on the path of the beam as a mirror. A functional element was designed and fabricated. Temporal splitting of a femtosecond laser pulse is experimentally demonstrated. The possibility of obtaining variable delay between subpulses is theoretically discussed.

Spectral phase induced by the reflection on a mirror-based waveguide grating in the neighborhood of modal resonance.

A linearly polarized plane wave impinging on a mirror-based waveguide grating is shown to experience a 2pi phase shift of controllable slope in the reflection spectrum. Such a zeroth-order resonant grating effect is adequately confirmed by means of an ellipsometer. The close agreement between the analytical representation of grating coupled waveguide resonances with the experimental results confirms the relevance of the underlying phenomenological understanding of resonant gratings.

Modal analysis and suppression of the Fourier modal method instabilities in highly conductive gratings.

The Fourier modal method (FMM), often also referred to as rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA), is known to suffer from numerical instabilities when applied to low-loss metallic gratings under TM incidence. This problem has so far been attributed to the imperfect conditioning of the matrices to be diagonalized. The present analysis based on a modal vision reveals that the so-called instabilities are true features of the solution of the mathematical problem of a binary metal grating dealt with by truncated Fourier representation of Maxwell's equations. The extreme sensitivity of this solution to the optogeometrical parameters is the result of the excitation, propagation, coupling, interference, and resonance of a finite number of very slow propagating spurious modes. An astute management of these modes permits a complete and safe removal of the numerical instabilities at the price of an arbitrarily small and controllable reduction in accuracy as compared with the referenced true-mode method.

Radially polarized 3 kW beam from a CO2 laser with an intracavity resonant grating mirror.

A 3 kW radially polarized beam is generated from a CO(2) laser by means of a resonant grating mirror. The design results and spectral characterization of a broadband polarizing mirror are presented as well as the mirror's operation in a CO(2) laser resonator. In a long-term experiment a radially polarized beam with a power of 2.7 kW was observed for several hours, proving the high stability of this polarizing scheme.