Linear polarization distinguishing metalens in visible wavelength.

A emerging optical metasurface has raised wide interest due to its planar structure and unprecedented control of light through subwavelength nano structures. In this study, we propose a novel metalens that integrates the function of a concentrating lens and linear polarizer. For this lens, focus can only be formed under the incidence of designed linear polarization, and its focusing effect is significantly suppressed upon the incidence of the orthogonal polarization. The linear polarization distinguishing focus characteristic is from the special design of anisotropic subwavelength phase shifters with two functionalities. One is the space-variant polarization distinguishing phase profile achieved through the engineering of a three-dimensional anisotropic phase shifter structure. The other is the selective generation of scattering loss on the incidence of its orthorgonal polarization. The linear polarization distinguishing metalens is fabricated through a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor compatible nano fabrication process, and its performance is demonstrated through both simulation and experiment.

Energy-filtered cold electron transport at room temperature.

Fermi-Dirac electron thermal excitation is an intrinsic phenomenon that limits functionality of various electron systems. Efforts to manipulate electron thermal excitation have been successful when the entire system is cooled to cryogenic temperatures, typically <1 K. Here we show that electron thermal excitation can be effectively suppressed at room temperature, and energy-suppressed electrons, whose energy distribution corresponds to an effective electron temperature of ~45 K, can be transported throughout device components without external cooling. This is accomplished using a discrete level of a quantum well, which filters out thermally excited electrons and permits only energy-suppressed electrons to participate in electron transport. The quantum well (~2 nm of Cr2O3) is formed between source (Cr) and tunnelling barrier (SiO2) in a double-barrier-tunnelling-junction structure having a quantum dot as the central island. Cold electron transport is detected from extremely narrow differential conductance peaks in electron tunnelling through CdSe quantum dots, with full widths at half maximum of only ~15 mV at room temperature.

High performance bianisotropic metasurfaces: asymmetric transmission of light.

It is experimentally shown that bianisotropic metasurfaces allow for extreme polarization control of light with high performance. A metasurface providing asymmetric transmission (i.e., polarization conversion) of circularly polarized light is reported at a wavelength of 1.5 µm. The experimental transmittance and extinction ratio are 50% and 20:1, which represents an order of magnitude improvement over previous optical structures exhibiting asymmetric transmission. The metasurface consists of patterned gold sheets that are spaced at a subwavelength distance from each other. The same design and fabrication processes can be used in the future to completely control the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light.

Fabrication and characterization of nanopores with insulated transverse nanoelectrodes for DNA sensing in salt solution.

We report on the fabrication, simulation, and characterization of insulated nanoelectrodes aligned with nanopores in low-capacitance silicon nitride membrane chips. We are exploring these devices for the transverse sensing of DNA molecules as they are electrophoretically driven through the nanopore in a linear fashion. While we are currently working with relatively large nanopores (6-12 nm in diameter) to demonstrate the transverse detection of DNA, our ultimate goal is to reduce the size sufficiently to resolve individual nucleotide bases, thus sequencing DNA as it passes through the pore. We present simulations and experiments that study the impact of insulating these electrodes, which is important to localize the sensing region. We test whether the presence of nanoelectrodes or insulation affects the stability of the ionic current flowing through the nanopore, or the characteristics of DNA translocation. Finally, we summarize the common device failures and challenges encountered during fabrication and experiments, explore the causes of these failures, and make suggestions on how to overcome them in the future.

Rapid electronic detection of probe-specific microRNAs using thin nanopore sensors.

Small RNA molecules have an important role in gene regulation and RNA silencing therapy, but it is challenging to detect these molecules without the use of time-consuming radioactive labelling assays or error-prone amplification methods. Here, we present a platform for the rapid electronic detection of probe-hybridized microRNAs from cellular RNA. In this platform, a target microRNA is first hybridized to a probe. This probe:microRNA duplex is then enriched through binding to the viral protein p19. Finally, the abundance of the duplex is quantified using a nanopore. Reducing the thickness of the membrane containing the nanopore to 6 nm leads to increased signal amplitudes from biomolecules, and reducing the diameter of the nanopore to 3 nm allows the detection and discrimination of small nucleic acids based on differences in their physical dimensions. We demonstrate the potential of this approach by detecting picogram levels of a liver-specific miRNA from rat liver RNA.

DNA translocation through graphene nanopores.

We report on DNA translocations through nanopores created in graphene membranes. Devices consist of 1-5 nm thick graphene membranes with electron-beam sculpted nanopores from 5 to 10 nm in diameter. Due to the thin nature of the graphene membranes, we observe larger blocked currents than for traditional solid-state nanopores. However, ionic current noise levels are several orders of magnitude larger than those for silicon nitride nanopores. These fluctuations are reduced with the atomic-layer deposition of 5 nm of titanium dioxide over the device. Unlike traditional solid-state nanopore materials that are insulating, graphene is an excellent electrical conductor. Use of graphene as a membrane material opens the door to a new class of nanopore devices in which electronic sensing and control are performed directly at the pore.

CMOS-compatible fabrication of room-temperature single-electron devices.

Devices in which the transport and storage of single electrons are systematically controlled could lead to a new generation of nanoscale devices and sensors. The attractive features of these devices include operation at extremely low power, scalability to the sub-nanometre regime and extremely high charge sensitivity. However, the fabrication of single-electron devices requires nanoscale geometrical control, which has limited their fabrication to small numbers of devices at a time, significantly restricting their implementation in practical devices. Here we report the parallel fabrication of single-electron devices, which results in multiple, individually addressable, single-electron devices that operate at room temperature. This was made possible using CMOS fabrication technology and implementing self-alignment of the source and drain electrodes, which are vertically separated by thin dielectric films. We demonstrate clear Coulomb staircase/blockade and Coulomb oscillations at room temperature and also at low temperatures.

Electrostatic funneling for precise nanoparticle placement: a route to wafer-scale integration.

We demonstrate a large-scale placement of nanoparticles through a scheme named "electrostatic funneling", in which charged nanoparticles are guided by an electrostatic potential energy gradient and placed on targeted locations with nanoscale precision. The guiding electrostatic structures are defined using current CMOS fabrication technology. The effectiveness of this scheme is demonstrated for a variety of geometries including one-dimensional and zero-dimensional patterns as well as three-dimensional step structures. Placement precision of 6 nm has been demonstrated using a one-dimensional guiding structure comprising alternatively charged lines with line width of approximately 100 nm. Detailed calculations using DLVO theory agree well with the observed long-range interactions and also estimate lateral forces as strong as (1-3) x 10(-7) dyn, which well explains the observed guided placement of Au nanoparticles.