Lai Mun Wong

Flexible visible-infrared metamaterials and their applications in highly sensitive chemical and biological sensing.

Flexible electronic and photonic devices have been demonstrated in the past decade, with significant promise in low-cost, light-weighted, transparent, biocompatible, and portable devices for a wide range of applications. Herein, we demonstrate a flexible metamaterial (Metaflex)-based photonic device operating in the visible-IR regime, which shows potential applications in high sensitivity strain, biological and chemical sensing. The metamaterial structure, consisting of split ring resonators (SRRs) of 30 nm thick Au or Ag, has been fabricated on poly(ethylene naphthalate) substrates with the least line width of ∼30 nm by electron beam lithography. The absorption resonances can be tuned from middle IR to visible range. The Ag U-shaped SRRs metamaterials exhibit an electric resonance of ∼542 nm and a magnetic resonance of ∼756 nm. Both the electric and magnetic resonance modes show highly sensitive responses to out-of-plane bending strain, surrounding dielectric media, and surface chemical environment. Due to the electric and magnetic field coupling, the magnetic response gives a sensitivity as high as 436 nm/RIU. Our Metaflex devices show superior responses with a shift of magnetic resonance of 4.5 nm/nM for nonspecific bovine serum albumin protein binding and 65 nm for a self-assembled monolayer of 2-naphthalenethiol, respectively, suggesting considerable promise in flexible and transparent photonic devices for chemical and biological sensing.

Vertically aligned cadmium chalcogenide nanowire arrays on muscovite mica: a demonstration of epitaxial growth strategy.

We report a strategy for achieving epitaxial, vertically aligned cadmium chalcogenide (CdS, CdSe, and CdTe) nanowire arrays utilizing van der Waals epitaxy with (001) muscovite mica substrate. The nanowires, grown from a vapor transport process, exhibited diameter uniformity throughout their length, sharp interface to the substrate, and positive correlation between diameter and length with preferential growth direction of [0001] for the monocrystalline wurtzite CdS and CdSe nanowires, but of [111] for zinc blende CdTe nanowires, which also featured abundant twinning boundaries. Self-catalytic vapor-liquid-solid mechanism with hydrogen-assisted thermal evaporation is proposed to intepret the observations. Optical absorption from the as-grown CdSe nanowire arrays on mica at 10 K revealed intense first-order exciton absorption and its longitudinal optical phonon replica. A small Stokes shift (∼1.3 meV) was identified, suggesting the high quality of the nanowires. This study demonstrated the generality of van der Waals epitaxy for the growth of nanowire arrays and their potential applications in optical and energy related devices.

Composition-Tunable Vertically Aligned CdSxSe1-x Nanowire Arrays via van der Waals Epitaxy: Investigation of Optical Properties and Photocatalytic Behavior

Utilization of semiconductor ternary alloys – including the pseudobinary instances when the mixture is composed of two binary semiconductors with a common element – offers the benefi t of continuous tunability of bandgap to suit the requirement of specifi c photonic devices of interest. The bandgap of a pseudobinary alloy can also be tuned conveniently simply by adjusting the stoichiometry of its binary constituents, which otherwise have discrete and limited bandgap values. However, the accompanying changes of the cell parameters of the material with respect to the composition create a diffi culty in achieving wellcrystalized growth of bulk alloys with complete composition tunability epitaxially, despite the strong importance of epitaxy for applications demanding a reliable and reproducible device fabrication. At some compositions, expansion or contraction of the in-plane lattice of the alloy will worsen the lattice mismatch with the substrate, which may then promote nucleation of mismatch-related dislocations and defects that are deleterious to the optical and electrical properties of the alloy. [ 1 ] To resolve the issue of lattice mismatch and the ensuing defects, growth of epitaxial alloy in vertically aligned nanowire array geometry has been proposed [ 2 ] due to the possibility of nanowires to relieve strain in the lateral direction owing to their fi nite diameter. [ 3 ] In addi

Metamaterials-based label-free nanosensor for conformation and affinity biosensing.

Analysis of molecular interaction and conformational dynamics of biomolecules is of paramount importance in understanding their vital functions in complex biological systems, disease detection, and new drug development. Plasmonic biosensors based upon surface plasmon resonance and localized surface plasmon resonance have become the predominant workhorse for detecting accumulated biomass caused by molecular binding events. However, unlike surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), the plasmonic biosensors indeed are not suitable tools to interrogate vibrational signatures of conformational transitions required for biomolecules to interact. Here, we show that highly tunable plasmonic metamaterials can offer two transducing channels for parallel acquisition of optical transmission and sensitive SERS spectra at the biointerface, simultaneously probing the conformational states and binding affinity of biomolecules, e.g., G-quadruplexes, in different environments. We further demonstrate the use of the metamaterials for fingerprinting and detection of the arginine-glycine-glycine domain of nucleolin, a cancer biomarker that specifically binds to a G-quadruplex, with the picomolar sensitivity.

Self-Assembled Shape-and Orientation-Controlled Synthesis of Nanoscale Cu3Si Triangles, Squares, and Wires

Controlling shape and orientation is important for the synthesis of functional nanomaterials. In this work, nanoscale Cu3Si triangles, squares, and wires have been grown on Si(111), (100), and (110) substrates, respectively, through a template-free Au-nanoparticle-assisted vapor transport method. The sides of nanotriangles and nanosquares and the growth direction of the nanowires are all along Si <110>, giving rise to long-range ordering of the nanostructures. Au nanoparticles absorb Cu vapor and facilitate the rate-limited diffusion of Si, which is critical for the shape-controlled growth of Cu3Si. This bottom-up approach to synthesize shape- and orientation-controlled Cu3Si nanostructures might be applicable to the tailored growth of other materials.

Growth of Cu2O on Ga-doped ZnO and their interface energy alignment for thin film solar cells

Cu2O thin films are deposited by direct current reactive magnetron sputtering on borofloat glass and indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass at room temperature. The effect of oxygen partial pressure on the structures and properties of Cu2O thin films are investigated. We show that oxygen partial pressure is a crucial parameter in achieving pure phases of CuO and Cu2O. Based on this finding, we fabricate heterojunctions of p-type Cu2O with n-type gallium doped ZnO (GZO) on ITO coated glass substrates by pulsed laser deposition for GZO thin films. The energy band alignment for thin films of Cu2O/GZO on ITO glass is characterized using high-resolution x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The energy band alignment for the Cu2O/GZO heterojunctions is determined to be type II with a valence band offset of 2.82 eV and shows negligible effects of variation with gallium doping. The higher conduction band of the Cu2O relative to that of GZO in the obtained band alignment shows that the heterojunctions are suitable for so...

Heteroepitaxial Decoration of Ag Nanoparticles on Si Nanowires: A Case Study on Raman Scattering and Mapping

Metallic nanoparticle-decorated silicon nanowires showed considerable promise in a wide range of applications such as photocatalytic conversion, surface-enhanced Raman scattering, and surface plasmonics. However there is still insufficient amount of Raman scattering in Si nanowires with such decoration. Here we report the heteroepitaxial growth of Ag nanoparticles on Si nanowires by a surface reduction mechanism. The as-grown Ag nanoparticles exhibited highly single crystallinity with a most probable diameter of 25 nm. Raman scattering spectroscopy showed a new sideband feature at 495 cm(-1) below the first order Si transverse optical Raman peak due to HF etching. This new feature sustained after sequential surface treatments and rapid thermal annealing, therefore was attributed to polycrystalline defect at subsurface, which was confirmed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy observations. Correlated atomic force microscopy and Raman mapping demonstrated that single Ag nanoparticle decoration significantly enhanced Raman signal of Si nanowire by a factor of 7, suggesting that it would be a promising approach to probe phonon confinement and radial breathing mode in individual nanowires down to sub-10 nm regime.

Morphology-controlled synthesis and a comparative study of the physical properties of SnO2 nanostructures: from ultrathin nanowires to ultrawide nanobelts.

Controlled synthesis of one-dimensional materials, such as nanowires and nanobelts, is of vital importance for achieving the desired properties and fabricating functional devices. We report a systematic investigation of the vapor transport growth of one-dimensional SnO(2) nanostructures, aiming to achieve precise morphology control. SnO(2) nanowires are obtained when SnO(2) mixed with graphite is used as the source material; adding TiO(2) into the source reliably leads to the formation of nanobelts. Ti-induced modification of crystal surface energy is proposed to be the origin of the morphology change. In addition, control of the lateral dimensions of both SnO(2) nanowires (from approximately 15 to approximately 115 nm in diameter) and nanobelts (from approximately 30 nm to approximately 2 microm in width) is achieved by adjusting the growth conditions. The physical properties of SnO(2) nanowires and nanobelts are further characterized and compared using room temperature photoluminescence, resonant Raman scattering, and field emission measurements.

A Template and Catalyst-Free Metal-Etching-Oxidation Method to Synthesize Aligned Oxide Nanowire Arrays: NiO as an Example

Although NiO is one of the canonical functional binary oxides, there has been no report so far on the effective fabrication of aligned single crystalline NiO nanowire arrays. Here we report a novel vapor-based metal-etching-oxidation method to synthesize high-quality NiO nanowire arrays with good vertical alignment and morphology control. In this method, Ni foils are used as both the substrates and the nickel source; NiCl(2) powder serves as the additional Ni source and provides Cl(2) to initiate mild etching. No template is deliberately employed; instead a nanograined NiO scale formed on the NiO foil guides the vapor infiltration and assists the self-assembled growth of NiO nanowires via a novel process comprising simultaneous Cl(2) etching and gentle oxidation. Furthermore, using CoO nanowires and Co-doped NiO as examples, we show that this general method can be employed to produce nanowires of other oxides as well as the doped counterparts.

Role of oxygen for highly conducting and transparent gallium-doped zinc oxide electrode deposited at room temperature

In this work, we found that a desirable amount of oxygen can reduce defect related scattering in enhancing carrier mobility for pulsed laser deposited zinc oxide. However, excessive oxygen can lead to formation of oxygen interstitials that can act as compensation or scattering centers. At higher oxygen pressures, structural changes that increase grain boundary scattering prove to be very important. We introduce a simple transparency index to quantify the transmission of the thin films for usage as electrodes in photovoltaic devices. An excellent resistivity of ∼3.9×10−4 Ω cm and an electron mobility of ∼19.2 cm2/V s with a transparency index of 0.84 (84% of total solar spectrum transmitted) were achieved at room temperature suggesting possible applications in plastic devices.