Edgar Palacios

Visible-frequency metasurfaces for broadband anomalous reflection and high-efficiency spectrum splitting.

Ultrathin metasurfaces have recently emerged as promising materials that have huge potential to enable novel, flat optical components, and surface-confined, miniature photonic devices. Metasurfaces offer new degrees of freedom in molding the optical wavefronts by introducing abrupt and drastic changes in the amplitude, phase, and/or polarization of electromagnetic radiation at the wavelength scale. By carefully arranging multiple subwavelength anisotropic or gradient optical resonators, metasurfaces have been shown to enable anomalous transmission, anomalous reflection, optical holograms, and spin-orbit interaction. However, experimental realization of high-performance metasurfaces that can operate at visible frequency range has been a significant challenge due to high optical losses of plasmonic materials and difficulties in fabricating several plasmonic resonators of subwavelength size with high uniformity. Here, we propose a highly efficient yet a simple metasurface design comprising of a single, anisotropic silver antenna in its unit cell. We demonstrate broadband (450-850 nm) anomalous reflection and spectrum splitting at visible and near-IR frequencies with high conversion efficiency. Average power ratio of anomalous reflection to the strongest diffraction mode was calculated to be on the order of 10(3) and measured to be on the order of 10. The anomalous reflected photons have been visualized using a charge-coupled device camera, and broadband spectrum splitting performance has been confirmed experimentally using a free space, angle-resolved reflection measurement setup. Metasurface design proposed in this study is a clear departure from conventional metasurfaces utilizing multiple, anisotropic and/or gradient optical resonators and could enable high-efficiency, broadband metasurfaces for achieving flat high signal-to-noise ratio optical spectrometers, polarization beam splitters, directional emitters, and spectrum splitting surfaces for photovoltaics.

Omnidirectional, broadband light absorption using large-area, ultrathin lossy metallic film coatings

Resonant absorbers based on nanostructured materials are promising for variety of applications including optical filters, thermophotovoltaics, thermal emitters, and hot-electron collection. One of the significant challenges for such micro/nanoscale featured medium or surface, however, is costly lithographic processes for structural patterning which restricted from industrial production of complex designs. Here, we demonstrate lithography-free, broadband, polarization-independent optical absorbers based on a three-layer ultrathin film composed of subwavelength chromium (Cr) and oxide film coatings. We have measured almost perfect absorption as high as 99.5% across the entire visible regime and beyond (400–800 nm). In addition to near-ideal absorption, our absorbers exhibit omnidirectional independence for incidence angle over ±60 degrees. Broadband absorbers introduced in this study perform better than nanostructured plasmonic absorber counterparts in terms of bandwidth, polarization and angle independence. Improvements of such “blackbody” samples based on uniform thin-film coatings is attributed to extremely low quality factor of asymmetric highly-lossy Fabry-Perot cavities. Such broadband absorber designs are ultrathin compared to carbon nanotube based black materials, and does not require lithographic processes. This demonstration redirects the broadband super absorber design to extreme simplicity, higher performance and cost effective manufacturing convenience for practical industrial production.

Intensity tunable infrared broadband absorbers based on VO2 phase transition using planar layered thin films

Plasmonic and metamaterial based nano/micro-structured materials enable spectrally selective resonant absorption, where the resonant bandwidth and absorption intensity can be engineered by controlling the size and geometry of nanostructures. Here, we demonstrate a simple, lithography-free approach for obtaining a resonant and dynamically tunable broadband absorber based on vanadium dioxide (VO2) phase transition. Using planar layered thin film structures, where top layer is chosen to be an ultrathin (20 nm) VO2 film, we demonstrate broadband IR light absorption tuning (from ~90% to ~30% in measured absorption) over the entire mid-wavelength infrared spectrum. Our numerical and experimental results indicate that the bandwidth of the absorption bands can be controlled by changing the dielectric spacer layer thickness. Broadband tunable absorbers can find applications in absorption filters, thermal emitters, thermophotovoltaics and sensing.

Quantifying Plasmon-Enhanced Light Absorption in Monolayer WS2 Films

Transition metal dichalcogenide semiconductors hold great promise in photonic and optoelectronic applications, such as flexible solar cells and ultrafast photodetectors, because of their direct band gap and few-atom thicknesses. However, it is crucial to understand and improve the absorption characteristics of these monolayer semiconducting materials. In this study, we conducted a systematic numerical and experimental investigation to demonstrate and quantify absorption enhancement in WS2 monolayer films, in the presence of silver plasmonic nanodisk arrays. Our analysis combining full-field electromagnetic simulations and optical absorption spectroscopy measurements indicates a fourfold enhancement in the absorption of an WS2 film near its band edge, close to the plasmonic resonance wavelength of Ag nanodisk arrays. The proposed Ag/WS2 heterostructure exhibited a 2.5-fold enhancement in calculated short-circuit current. Such hybrid plasmonic or two-dimensional (2D) materials with enhanced absorption pave the way for the practical realization of 2D optoelectronic devices, including ultrafast photodetectors and solar cells.

Chiral-selective plasmonic metasurface absorbers operating at visible frequencies

We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally a chiral-selective plasmonic absorber by utilizing eng -shaped-resonators in the visible frequencies. Our metasurface design enables chiral-selective absorption bands, in which absorption peaks for left-handed circularly polarized and right-handed circularly polarized occur at different resonance wavelengths resulting in significant circular dichroism (CD). Both simulated and measured absorption spectra exhibit maximum absorptions exceeding 80% associated with a CD value of ~0.5. Such a chiral plasmonic metasurface absorber with high performance could find applications in optical filters, non-linear optics, thermal emitters, and hot-electron collection devices.

Enhanced radiative emission from monolayer MoS2 films using a single plasmonic dimer nanoantenna

By thinning transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) to monolayer form, a direct bandgap semiconductor emerges which opens up opportunities for use in optoelectronic devices. However, absorption and radiative emission is drastically reduced which hinders their applicability for practical devices. One way to address this challenge is to design plasmonic resonators that localize electric fields within or near the two-dimensional (2D) material to confine excitation fields and increase Purcell factors. Previous studies have successfully utilized this method for enhancing radiative emission in 2D-TMDCs by using large area plasmonic arrays that exhibit complex plasmonic interactions due to near and far-field couplings that take place over many periods. In this study, we demonstrate the photoluminescence enhancements in monolayer MoS2 under single Au nanoantennas which only exhibit near-field interactions. Here, the enhancements originate from excitation of near-field plasmons confined within 20 nm of monolayer ...

DNA-Mediated Size-Selective Nanoparticle Assembly for Multiplexed Surface Encoding

Multiplexed surface encoding is achieved by positioning two different sizes of gold nanocubes on gold surfaces with precisely defined locations for each particle via template-confined, DNA-mediated nanoparticle assembly. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, cubes with 86 and 63 nm edge lengths are assembled into arrangements that physically and spectrally encrypt two sets of patterns in the same location. These patterns can be decrypted by mapping the absorption intensity of the substrate at λ = 773 and 687 nm, respectively. This multiplexed encoding platform dramatically increases the sophistication and density of codes that can be written using colloidal nanoparticles, which may enable high-security, high-resolution encoding applications.

Optically Active 1D MoS2 Nanobelts

Transition metal dichalcogenides can be synthesized in a wide range of structures. 1D geometries, including nanotubes and nanowires, are especially intriguing due to enhanced light-matter interactions stemming from both the thickness and width possessing subwavelength dimensions. In this letter, we demonstrate the synthesis of 1D MoS2 nanobelts through chemical vapor deposition and examine the mechanism driving the formation of this material. We also report enhanced light scattering within these structures. Finally, we investigate the phototransistor behavior of MoS2 nanobelts and observed a photoresponsivity around 1.5 A/W, an order of magnitude greater than analogous multilayer 2D MoS2 sheets reported previously.

Extrinsic polarization-controlled optical anisotropy in plasmon-black phosphorus coupled system

Two-dimensional black phosphorus (BP) has drawn extensive research interest due to its promising anisotropic photonic and electronic properties. Here, we study anisotropic optical absorption and photoresponse of exfoliated BP flakes at visible frequencies. We enhance this intrinsic optical anisotropy in BP flakes by coupling plasmonic rectangular nanopatch arrays that support localized surface plasmon resonances. In particular, by combining extrinsic anisotropic plasmonic nanostructures lithographically aligned with intrinsically anisotropic BP flakes, we demonstrate for the first time a combined anisotropic plasmonic-semiconductor coupling that provides significant control over the polarization-dependent optical properties of the plasmon-BP hybrid material system, enhancing polarization-sensitive responses to a larger degree. This hybrid material system not only unveils the plasmon-enhanced mechanisms in BP, but also provides novel controllable functionalities in optoelectronic device applications involving polarization-sensitive optical and electrical responses.

Visible-frequency metasurfaces for broadband anomalous reflection and high-efficiency spectrum splitting (Presentation Recording)

Metasurfaces offer new degrees of freedom in moulding the optical wavefronts by introducing abrupt and drastic changes in the amplitude, phase and/or polarization of electromagnetic radiation at the wavelength scale. By carefully arranging multiple subwavelength anisotropic or gradient optical resonators, metasurfaces have been shown to enable anomalous transmission, anomalous reflection, optical holograms and spin-orbit interaction. However, experimental realization of high-performance metasurfaces that can operate at visible frequency range has been a significant challenge due to high optical losses of plasmonic materials and difficulties in fabricating several subwavelength plasmonic resonators with high uniformity. Here, we propose a highly-efficient yet a simple metasurface design comprising of a single, anisotropic trapezoid-shape antenna in its unit cell. We demonstrate broadband (450 - 850 nm) anomalous reflection and spectrum splitting at visible and near-IR frequencies with 85% conversion efficiency. Average power ratio of anomalous reflection to the strongest diffraction mode was calculated to be on the order of 1000 and measured to be on the order of 10. The anomalous reflected photons have been visualized using a CCD camera, and broadband spectrum splitting performance has been confirmed experimentally using a free space, angle-resolved reflection measurement setup. Metasurface design proposed in this study is a clear departure from conventional metasurfaces utilizing multiple, anisotropic and/or gradient optical resonators, and could enable high-efficiency, broadband metasurfaces for achieving flat high SNR optical spectrometers, polarization beam splitters, directional emitters and spectrum splitting surfaces for photovoltaics.