Laser nanofabrication inside silicon with spatial beam modulation and anisotropic seeding.

Nanofabrication in silicon, arguably the most important material for modern technology, has been limited exclusively to its surface. Existing lithography methods cannot penetrate the wafer surface without altering it, whereas emerging laser-based subsurface or in-chip fabrication remains at greater than 1 µm resolution. In addition, available methods do not allow positioning or modulation with sub-micron precision deep inside the wafer. The fundamental difficulty of breaking these dimensional barriers is two-fold, i.e., complex nonlinear effects inside the wafer and the inherent diffraction limit for laser light. Here, we overcome these challenges by exploiting spatially-modulated laser beams and anisotropic feedback from preformed subsurface structures, to establish controlled nanofabrication capability inside silicon. We demonstrate buried nanostructures of feature sizes down to 100 ± 20 nm, with subwavelength and multi-dimensional control; thereby improving the state-of-the-art by an order-of-magnitude. In order to showcase the emerging capabilities, we fabricate nanophotonics elements deep inside Si, exemplified by nanogratings with record diffraction efficiency and spectral control. The reported advance is an important step towards 3D nanophotonics systems, micro/nanofluidics, and 3D electronic-photonic integrated systems.

Laser-written wave plates inside the silicon enabled by stress-induced birefringence.

Laser writing enables optical functionality by altering the optical properties of materials. To achieve this goal, efforts generally focus on laser-written regions. It has also been shown that birefringence surrounding the modified regions can be exploited for achieving functionality. The effect has been used to fabricate wave plates in glass, with significant potential for other materials. Here, we establish analogous stress control and birefringence engineering inside silicon. We first develop a robust analytical model enabling the prediction of birefringence maps from arbitrary laser-written patterns. Then, we tailor three-dimensional laser lithography to create the first, to the best of our knowledge, polarization-control optics inside silicon.

High-Efficiency Multilevel Volume Diffraction Gratings inside Silicon.

Silicon (Si)-based integrated photonics is considered to play a pivotal role in multiple emerging technologies, including telecommunications, quantum computing, and lab-chip systems. Diverse functionalities are either implemented on the wafer surface ("on-chip") or recently within the wafer ("in-chip") using laser lithography. However, the emerging depth degree of freedom has been exploited only for single-level devices in Si. Thus, monolithic and multilevel discrete functionality is missing within the bulk. Here, we report the creation of multilevel, high-efficiency diffraction gratings in Si using three-dimensional (3D) nonlinear laser lithography. To boost device performance within a given volume, we introduce the concept of effective field enhancement at half the Talbot distance, which exploits self-imaging onto discrete levels over an optical lattice. The novel approach enables multilevel gratings in Si with a record efficiency of 53%, measured at 1550 nm. Furthermore, we predict a diffraction efficiency approaching 100%, simply by increasing the number of levels. Such volumetric Si-photonic devices represent a significant advance toward 3D-integrated monolithic photonic chips.

Breaking crosstalk limits to dynamic holography using orthogonality of high-dimensional random vectors.

Holography is the most promising route to true-to-life 3D projections, but the incorporation of complex images with full depth control remains elusive. Digitally synthesised holograms1-7, which do not require real objects to create a hologram, offer the possibility of dynamic projection of 3D video8,9. Extensive efforts aimed 3D holographic projection10-17, however available methods remain limited to creating images on a few planes10-12, over a narrow depth-of-field13,14 or with low resolution15-17. Truly 3D holography also requires full depth control and dynamic projection capabilities, which are hampered by high crosstalk9,18. The fundamental difficulty is in storing all the information necessary to depict a complex 3D image in the 2D form of a hologram without letting projections at different depths contaminate each other. Here, we solve this problem by preshaping the wavefronts to locally reduce Fresnel diffraction to Fourier holography, which allows inclusion of random phase for each depth without altering image projection at that particular depth, but eliminates crosstalk due to near-orthogonality of large-dimensional random vectors. We demonstrate Fresnel holograms that form on-axis with full depth control without any crosstalk, producing large-volume, high-density, dynamic 3D projections with 1000 image planes simultaneously, improving the state-of-the-art12,17 for number of simultaneously created planes by two orders of magnitude. While our proof-of-principle experiments use spatial light modulators, our solution is applicable to all types of holographic media.

In-chip microstructures and photonic devices fabricated by nonlinear laser lithography deep inside silicon.

Silicon is an excellent material for microelectronics and integrated photonics1-3 with untapped potential for mid-IR optics4. Despite broad recognition of the importance of the third dimension5,6, current lithography methods do not allow fabrication of photonic devices and functional microelements directly inside silicon chips. Even relatively simple curved geometries cannot be realised with techniques like reactive ion etching. Embedded optical elements, like in glass7, electronic devices, and better electronic-photonic integration are lacking8. Here, we demonstrate laser-based fabrication of complex 3D structures deep inside silicon using 1 µm-sized dots and rod-like structures of adjustable length as basic building blocks. The laser-modified Si has a different optical index than unmodified parts, which enables numerous photonic devices. Optionally, these parts are chemically etched to produce desired 3D shapes. We exemplify a plethora of subsurface, i.e., "in-chip" microstructures for microfluidic cooling of chips, vias, MEMS, photovoltaic applications and photonic devices that match or surpass the corresponding state-of-the-art device performances.

Rich complex behaviour of self-assembled nanoparticles far from equilibrium.

A profoundly fundamental question at the interface between physics and biology remains open: what are the minimum requirements for emergence of complex behaviour from nonliving systems? Here, we address this question and report complex behaviour of tens to thousands of colloidal nanoparticles in a system designed to be as plain as possible: the system is driven far from equilibrium by ultrafast laser pulses that create spatiotemporal temperature gradients, inducing Marangoni flow that drags particles towards aggregation; strong Brownian motion, used as source of fluctuations, opposes aggregation. Nonlinear feedback mechanisms naturally arise between flow, aggregate and Brownian motion, allowing fast external control with minimal intervention. Consequently, complex behaviour, analogous to those seen in living organisms, emerges, whereby aggregates can self-sustain, self-regulate, self-replicate, self-heal and can be transferred from one location to another, all within seconds. Aggregates can comprise only one pattern or bifurcated patterns can coexist, compete, endure or perish.

Portable microfluidic integrated plasmonic platform for pathogen detection.

Timely detection of infectious agents is critical in early diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases. Conventional pathogen detection methods, such as enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), culturing or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) require long assay times, and complex and expensive instruments, which are not adaptable to point-of-care (POC) needs at resource-constrained as well as primary care settings. Therefore, there is an unmet need to develop simple, rapid, and accurate methods for detection of pathogens at the POC. Here, we present a portable, multiplex, inexpensive microfluidic-integrated surface plasmon resonance (SPR) platform that detects and quantifies bacteria, i.e., Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) rapidly. The platform presented reliable capture and detection of E. coli at concentrations ranging from ~10(5) to 3.2 × 10(7) CFUs/mL in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) fluid. The multiplexing and specificity capability of the platform was also tested with S. aureus samples. The presented platform technology could potentially be applicable to capture and detect other pathogens at the POC and primary care settings.

Nanoplasmonic quantitative detection of intact viruses from unprocessed whole blood.

Infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis B pose an omnipresent threat to global health. Reliable, fast, accurate, and sensitive platforms that can be deployed at the point-of-care (POC) in multiple settings, such as airports and offices, for detection of infectious pathogens are essential for the management of epidemics and possible biological attacks. To the best of our knowledge, no viral load technology adaptable to the POC settings exists today due to critical technical and biological challenges. Here, we present for the first time a broadly applicable technology for quantitative, nanoplasmonic-based intact virus detection at clinically relevant concentrations. The sensing platform is based on unique nanoplasmonic properties of nanoparticles utilizing immobilized antibodies to selectively capture rapidly evolving viral subtypes. We demonstrate the capture, detection, and quantification of multiple HIV subtypes (A, B, C, D, E, G, and subtype panel) with high repeatability, sensitivity, and specificity down to 98 ± 39 copies/mL (i.e., HIV subtype D) using spiked whole blood samples and clinical discarded HIV-infected patient whole blood samples validated by the gold standard, i.e., RT-qPCR. This platform technology offers an assay time of 1 h and 10 min (1 h for capture, 10 min for detection and data analysis). The presented platform is also able to capture intact viruses at high efficiency using immuno-surface chemistry approaches directly from whole blood samples without any sample preprocessing steps such as spin-down or sorting. Evidence is presented showing the system to be accurate, repeatable, and reliable. Additionally, the presented platform technology can be broadly adapted to detect other pathogens having reasonably well-described biomarkers by adapting the surface chemistry. Thus, this broadly applicable detection platform holds great promise to be implemented at POC settings, hospitals, and primary care settings.