Vertical-cavity surface-emitting phase shifter.

This study proposes a novel technique for a 2D beam steering system using hybrid plasmonic phase shifters with a cylindrical configuration in a 2D periodic array suitable for LIDAR applications. A nanoscale VCSEP design facilitates a sub-wavelength spacing between individual phase shifters, yielding an expanded field of view and side lobes suppression. The proposed design includes a highly doped sub-micron silicon pillar covered by a thin layer of nonlinear material and an additional conductive metal layer. Characterization of a single VCSEP demonstrated a Free Spectral Range (FSR) of 53.28 ± 2.5 nm and a transmission variation of 3 dB, with VπL equal to 0.075 V-mm.

Plasmonic enhanced two-photon absorption in silicon photodetectors for optical correlators in the near-infrared.

A high-density array of plasmonic coaxial nanoantennas is used to enhance the two-photon absorption (TPA) process in a conventional silicon photodetector from a mode-locked 76 MHz Ti:sapphire laser over a spectral range from 1340 to 1550 nm. This enhanced TPA was used to generate an interferometric autocorrelation trace of a 150 fs laser pulse. Unlike second-harmonic generation, this technique does not require phase matching or a bulky crystal and can be used on a low-cost integrated silicon platform over a wide range of near-IR wavelengths compatible with modern commercial tunable femtosecond sources.

Simulated Raman correlation spectroscopy for quantifying nucleic acid-silver composites.

Plasmonic devices are of great interest due to their ability to confine light to the nanoscale level and dramatically increase the intensity of the electromagnetic field, functioning as high performance platforms for Raman signal enhancement. While Raman spectroscopy has been proposed as a tool to identify the preferential binding sites and adsorption configurations of molecules to nanoparticles, the results have been limited by the assumption that a single binding site is responsible for molecular adsorption. Here, we develop the simulated Raman correlation spectroscopy (SRCS) process to determine which binding sites of a molecule preferentially bind to a plasmonic material and in what capacity. We apply the method to the case of nucleic acids binding to silver, discovering that multiple atoms are responsible for adsorption kinetics. This method can be applied to future systems, such as to study the molecular orientation of adsorbates to films or protein conformation upon adsorption.

Experimental model of topological defects in Minkowski space-time based on disordered ferrofluid: magnetic monopoles, cosmic strings and the space-time cloak.

In the presence of an external magnetic field, cobalt nanoparticle-based ferrofluid forms a self-assembled hyperbolic metamaterial. The wave equation, which describes propagation of extraordinary light inside the ferrofluid, exhibits 2+1 dimensional Lorentz symmetry. The role of time in the corresponding effective three-dimensional Minkowski space-time is played by the spatial coordinate directed along the periodic nanoparticle chains aligned by the magnetic field. Here, we present a microscopic study of point, linear, planar and volume defects of the nanoparticle chain structure and demonstrate that they may exhibit strong similarities with such Minkowski space-time defects as magnetic monopoles, cosmic strings and the recently proposed space-time cloaks. Experimental observations of such defects are described.

Broadband metacoaxial nanoantenna for metasurface and sensing applications.

We introduce a metacoaxial nanoantenna (MN) that super-localizes the incident electromagnetic field to "hotspots" with a top-down area of 2 nm(2), a local field enhancement of ~200-400, and a field localization with a very large spectral range from the visible to the infrared range that has a spectral bandwidth ≥ 900 nm. Not only is this nanoantenna extremely broadband with ultra-high localization, it also shows significant improvements over traditional nanoantenna designs, as the hotspots are re-configurable by breaking the circular symmetry which enables the ability to tailor the polarization response. These attributes offer significant improvements over traditional nanoantennas as building blocks for metasurfaces and enhanced biodetection that we demonstrate in this work.

Lattice models of nontrivial "optical spaces" based on metamaterial waveguides.

Metamaterials are being used to model various exotic "optical spaces" for such applications as novel lenses and cloaking. While most efforts are directed toward the engineering of continuously changing dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability tensors, an alternative approach may be based on lattices of metamaterial waveguides. Here we demonstrate the power of the latter technique by presenting metamaterial lattice models of various four-dimensional spaces.