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.

Controlling the optical and structural properties of ZnS-AgInS2 nanocrystals by using a photo-induced process.

ZnS-AgInS2 (ZAIS) solid-solution nanocrystals are promising materials for nanophotonic devices in the visible region because of their low toxicity and good emission properties. We developed a technique of photo-induced synthesis to control the size and composition of the ZAIS nanocrystals. This method successfully decreased the defect levels, as well as the size and size variation of ZAIS nanocrystals by controlling the excitation wavelength during synthesis. Detailed analysis of transmission electron microscope images confirmed that the photo-induced synthesis yielded a high crystallinity of the ZAIS nanocrystals with small variations in size and content.

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.

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.

Dressed-photon-phonon (DPP)-assisted visible- and infrared-light water splitting.

A dressed-phonon-phonon (DPP) assisted photocatalyst reaction was carried out to increase the visible light responsibility, where the photon energy of the radiation, which ranged from visible to infrared light is less than band gap energy of the photocatalyst (ZnO, 3.3 eV). The dependence of the photocurrent on excitation power indicated that two-step excitation occurred in DPP-assisted process. A cathodoluminescence measurement also supported the conclusion that the visible- and infrared-light excitation originated from DPP excitation, not from defect states in the ZnO nanorod photocatalyst.

CO2 phonon mode renormalization using phonon-assisted energy up-conversion.

Molecular dissociation under incident light whose energy is lower than the bond dissociation energy has been achieved through multi step excitation using a coupled state of a photon, electron, and multimode-coherent phonon as known as the dressed photon phonon (DPP). Here, we have investigated the effects of the DPP on CO2, a very stable molecule with high absorption and dissociation energies, by introducing ZnO nanorods to generate the DPP. Then, the changes in CO2 absorption bands were evaluated using light with a wavelength longer than the absorption wavelength, which confirmed the DPP-assisted energy up-conversion. To evaluate the specific CO2 modes related to this process, we measured the CO2 vibration-rotation spectra in the near-infrared region. Detailed analysis of the 3ν3 vibrational band when a DPP source is present showed that DPP causes a significant increase in the intensity of certain absorption bands, especially those that require higher energies to activate.

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.

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.

Optical interconnects based on optical far- and near-field interactions for high-density data broadcasting.

Ultrahigh-density data-broadcasting optical interconnects are proposed and experimentally demonstrated using optical near-field interactions between quantum dots, which cannot be driven by far-field light, allowing sub-wavelength device operation, and far-field excitation for global interconnects. The proposed scheme helps to solve interconnection difficulties experienced in nano-scale device arrays since components for individually guiding light from external systems are not required. Combining the broadcasting mechanism with switching and summation architectures will allow nano-scale integration of parallel processing devices.

Nanometric summation architecture based on optical near-field interaction between quantum dots.

A nanoscale data summation architecture is proposed and experimentally demonstrated based on the optical near-field interaction between quantum dots. Based on local electromagnetic interactions between a few nanometric elements via optical near fields, we can combine multiple excitations at a certain quantum dot, which allows construction of a summation architecture. Summation plays a key role for content-addressable memory, which is one of the most important functions in optical networks.

Nonadiabatic photodissociation process using an optical near field.

We demonstrated the deposition of nanometric Zn dots using photodissociation with gas-phase diethylzinc and an optical near field under nonresonant conditions. To explain the experimental results, we proposed an exciton-phonon polariton model, and discuss the quantitative experimental dependence of the deposition rate on the optical power and photon energy based on photodissociation involving multiple-step excitation via molecular vibration modes. The physical basis of this process, which seems to violate the Franck-Condon principle, is the optically nonadiabatic excitation of the molecular vibration mode due to the steep spatial gradient of the optical near-field energy.

Direct observation of optically forbidden energy transfer between CuCl quantum cubes via near-field optical spectroscopy.

We report, for the first time, evidence of near-field energy transfer among CuCl quantum cubes using an ultrahigh-resolution near-field optical microscopy and spectroscopy in the near UV region at 15 K. The sample was high-density CuCl quantum cubes embedded in a NaCl matrix. Measured spatial distributions of the luminescence intensities from 4.6-nm and 6.3-nm quantum cubes clearly established anticorrelation features. This is thought to be a manifestation of the energy transfer from the lowest state of exciton in 4.6-nm quantum cubes to the first dipole-forbidden excited state of exciton in 6.3-nm quantum cubes, which is attributed to the resonant optical near-field interaction.