Xue-Hua Wang

Plasmonic gold mushroom arrays with refractive index sensing figures of merit approaching the theoretical limit

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR)-based sensing has found wide applications in medical diagnosis, food safety regulation and environmental monitoring. Compared with commercial propagating surface plasmon resonance (PSPR)-based sensors, LSPR ones are simple, cost-effective and suitable for measuring local refractive index changes. However, the figure of merit (FOM) values of LSPR sensors are generally 1-2 orders of magnitude smaller than those of PSPR ones, preventing the widespread use of LSPR sensors. Here we describe an array of submicrometer gold mushrooms with a FOM reaching ~108, which is comparable to the theoretically predicted upper limit for standard PSPR sensors. Such a high FOM arises from the interference between Woods anomaly and the LSPRs. We further demonstrate the array as a biosensor for detecting cytochrome c and alpha-fetoprotein, with their detection limits down to 200 pM and 15 ng ml(-1), respectively, suggesting that the array is a promising candidate for label-free biomedical sensing.

Unified Treatment of Fluorescence and Raman Scattering Processes near Metal Surfaces

We present a general model study of surface-enhanced resonant Raman scattering and fluorescence focusing on the interplay between electromagnetic effects and the molecular dynamics. Our model molecule is placed close to two Ag nanoparticles and has two electronic levels. A Franck-Condon mechanism provides electron-vibration coupling. Using realistic parameter values for the molecule we find that an electromagnetic enhancement by 10 orders of magnitude can yield Raman cross sections sigma(R) of the order 10(-14) cm(2). We also discuss the dependence of sigma(R) on incident laser intensity.

Three-dimensional photonic crystals fabricated by visible light holographic lithography

In this report, we present three-dimensional photonic crystals fabricated by a four-beam holographic lithography method using visible photoinduced polymerization. High-quality face-centered-cubic single crystals with a large range of polymeric matrix volume fraction were fabricated using optimal conditions obtained from computer simulations. Optical measurements of the crystals showing photonic band-gap-like behavior are presented for different polymeric matrix volume fractions.

Scalable, full-colour and controllable chromotropic plasmonic printing

Plasmonic colour printing has drawn wide attention as a promising candidate for the next-generation colour-printing technology. However, an efficient approach to realize full colour and scalable fabrication is still lacking, which prevents plasmonic colour printing from practical applications. Here we present a scalable and full-colour plasmonic printing approach by combining conjugate twin-phase modulation with a plasmonic broadband absorber. More importantly, our approach also demonstrates controllable chromotropic capability, that is, the ability of reversible colour transformations. This chromotropic capability affords enormous potentials in building functionalized prints for anticounterfeiting, special label, and high-density data encryption storage. With such excellent performances in functional colour applications, this colour-printing approach could pave the way for plasmonic colour printing in real-world commercial utilization.

Efficient Silicon Metasurfaces for Visible Light

Dielectric metasurfaces require high refractive index contrast materials for optimum performance. This requirement imposes a severe restraint; either devices have been demonstrated at wavelengths of 700 nm and above using high-index semiconductors such as silicon, or they use lower index dielectric materials such as TiO2 or Si3N4 and operate in the visible wavelength regime. Here, we show that the high refractive index of silicon can be exploited at wavelengths as short as 532 nm by demonstrating a crystalline silicon metasurface with a transmission efficiency of 71% at this wavelength and a diffraction efficiency of 95% into the desired diffraction order. The metasurfaces consist of a graded array of silicon posts arranged in a square lattice on a quartz substrate. We show full 2π phase control, and we experimentally demonstrate polarization-independent beam deflection at 532 nm wavelength. Our results open a new way for realizing efficient metasurfaces based on silicon for the technologically all-import...

Giant Lamb Shift in Photonic Crystals

We obtain a general result for the Lamb shift of excited states of multilevel atoms in inhomogeneous electromagnetic structures and apply it to study atomic hydrogen in inverse-opal photonic crystals. We find that the photonic-crystal environment can lead to very large values of the Lamb shift, as compared to the case of vacuum. We also suggest that the position-dependent Lamb shift should extend from a single level to a miniband for an assembly of atoms with random distribution in space, similar to the velocity-dependent Doppler effect in atomic/molecular gases.

Tuning Triangular Prism Dimer into Fano Resonance for Plasmonic Sensor

We theoretically investigate the plasmonic Fano resonance in a triangular nanoprism dimer. By adjusting the geometry parameters, we have observed a Fano line shape in the scattering spectra, which is induced by the competence of bonding and antibonding modes in the triangular nanoprism dimer. The Fano line shape can be well described by a theoretical model of two harmonic oscillators. A figure of merit value as high as 16.1 is achieved in the triangular nanoprism dimer, which is caused by the Fano resonance. The electric field at the corner of the triangular prisms is the highest among the circular cylinder dimer and square rod dimmers, which shows that the triangular prism dimer is more suitable for the detection of biomolecules. The triangular prism dimer may also used in plasmonic circuits.

Optimization of enhanced absorption in 3D-woodpile metallic photonic crystals.

We present a detailed theoretical analysis which reveals a useful insight to understand the resonant dissipative behavior of 3D woodpile metallic photonic crystals in the spectral response. We observe that a small amount of structural parameter modifications can induce great flexibility to alter the properties of the absorption resonance with even an extremely narrow band width of ~13 nm. Analyzing the dispersive properties of the 3D woodpile metallic photonic crystals and performing thorough numerical simulations for the finite number of layers we found that the magnitude, band width, and tunability of enhanced absorption can be easily optimized, which can be of significance to design an efficient photonic crystal thermal emitter.

Mode Evolution and Transmission Suppression in a Perforated Ultrathin Metallic Film with a Triangular Array of Holes

We theoretically study the evolution of the resonant modes and the transmission suppression (TS) effect in a perforated ultrathin metallic film (PUMF) with a periodic triangular array of holes. It is found that the properties of different resonances change as the hole radius increases, and the non-monotonic shift of resonant frequency can be interpreted qualitatively from the electric field distribution other than the Fano model. In addition, we analyze the strong mode interaction phenomenon in PUMF. When the diameter of holes approaches to four fifths of the lattice constant, the coupling between dipolar resonance and decapolar resonance can lead to an anticrossing and a large Rabi splitting, which is not available in PUMFs with square lattice; the resulting hybrid modes can be ascribed to the quasi-inphase and quasi-antiphase interferences between dipolar resonance and decapolar resonance. By comparing the TS effect of different resonances under different hole radii, we conclude that although dipolar resonance, short-range surface plasmons, and hybrid modes can all contribute to TS effect; the prominent TS effect in our structure should be mainly caused by the collective dipolar resonance of the structure. These findings might be of interest for the future studies in PUMF-based structures and devices.

Enhancement of spontaneous emission in three-dimensional low refractive-index photonic crystals with designed defects

In this work, we demonstrate that low refractive-index three-dimensional photonics crystals with a planar defect, fabricated with the direct laser writing method, can be used to effectively enhance the spontaneous emission (SE) of semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). To achieve this, we develop a controllable and reliable method to integrate quantum dots into the defect-embedded photonic crystals (PCs). Although the overlapping of different direction stop gaps in low refractive-index defect-free three-dimensional photonic crystals imposes a challenge to realize spontaneous emission enhancement at the band edge wavelength, we achieve a 15% enhancement of the spontaneous emission by introducing a tailored planar defect.