We designed a metasurface-integrated topological photonic crystal that controls the polarization and beam shape of emission. The topological photonic crystal (TPC) bulk cavity works based on band-inversion-induced reflection at the interfaces of different topological structures. Therefore, it can be manufactured with a small-sized cavity, and it is a device capable of sufficiently lasing even at a relatively low threshold. Here, by integrating with dielectric metasurface that can control the phase, amplitude, and polarization of light, we designed and fabricated a TPC cavity that generates circularly polarization and simultaneously beam shape of emission.
Recently, metasurfaces are integrated with existing devices such as LEDs and lasers, further extending their applications more. Here, we have attempted to miniaturize existing bulky optical components by combining metasurfaces with a surface-emitting photonic bandedge laser. We designed a photonic bandedge laser that generates linearly polarized light by changing circles as ellipses in photonic crystals. By combining metasurface-based quarter-wave plates, axicon lenses, and vortex lenses on the photonic crystals, we confirmed the effective generation of circularly polarized light that simultaneously forms Bessel beams and vortex beams. Our proposed structure is expected to be used in various fields where circularly polarized light is used, such as 3D displays, optical communications, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR)s etc.
Photonic crystal (PhC) phosphor is a paradigm-shifting structural platform that the authors’ group has developed. In this study, two major changes are introduced to the existing two-dimensional PhC phosphor: an increase in the refractive index contrast by replacing the PhC backbone material and the planarization of phosphor surface by the squeegee method. Compared with the reference phosphor, the upgraded PhC phosphor exhibits ~59 times enhanced absorption (simulated) and ~7 times enhanced phosphor emission (experimental). Although already impressive, the huge gap between theory and experiment indicates ample room for further improvement through, for example, the refinements in device fabrication.
Miniaturization of optical spectrometers has recently drawn a lot of attention due to the increasing needs of portable characterization systems for scientific, industrial, and consumer applications. At the same time, smartphones have technically evolved to become an everyday, ubiquitous device that provides numerous useful applications to consumers. Combining optical spectrometer and smartphone could lead to an explosion of new applications, especially in healthcare, biometrics, and food inspections, and change our daily life, making it more convenient, independent, and hyper-personalized.
In this work, we have developed a smartphone spectrometer in the visible and near infrared (NIR) ranges by directly integrating a 2 dimensional periodic array of band-pass filters on top of the smartphone’s image sensor. Each band pass filter is a silicon resonator consisting of a pair of Si/SiO₂ distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR), where each resonator’s transmitting wavelength is set by adjusting the thickness of the center Si layer. The DBR contains alternating, vertically-stacked TiO2 and SiN films with variable thicknesses while the top and bottom of the DBR were made of Al and Cu or Al reflectors for the visible and NIR ranges, respectively. The fabrication process was completely CMOS-compatible.
Using this smartphone spectrometer, we have proposed the concept of artificial-intelligence-powered spectral barcode for material identification and successfully demonstrated its use in drug identification. The accuracy of correctly identifying the type of drugs was ~99%. In addition, the smartphone spectrometer has also proven to correctly distinguish beef into three different classes according to the freshness.
Recently, with the development of fabrication technology, sub-nm patterning has been developed, and it has become sufficiently possible to make a nanostructure having a sub-wavelength period. For this reason, metasurface has been a topic of increasing interest in the field of nanophotonics. In this paper, we report the results of realizing mode locking by inserting a metasurface in the form of a saturable absorber into an Yb-doped fiber laser. The metasurface-based saturable absorber has the advantage of reducing the loss due to the deterioration of the existing saturable absorber.
We present an optical slot antenna and its application. By measuring transmission spectra and far-field radiation pattern of metallic slots with nanometer scale, we show that a metallic nanoslot has the properties of an antenna, which are resonance, polarization, and bidirectional far-field radiation pattern, and can be regarded as a magnetic dipole in optical region. Additionally, we also make the unidirectional radiation by adapting the geometry of RF Yagi-Uda antenna and applying slot antenna. By the aid of phase analysis based on 3-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulation, we can increase the front-to-back ratio of an optical slot Yagi-Uda antenna up to about 5. As the application of a slot antenna, we integrate a metal-insulator-metal plasmonic waveguide with a slot antenna. A surface plasmon waveguide mode propagating in MIM structure is well-coupled to a slot antenna and radiates into free-space in form of dipole radiation. By adding an auxiliary structure that has the role of reflector as like a slot Yagi-Uda antenna, the direction of radiation from a slot antenna integrated with a plasmonic waveguide can be controlled efficiently. Besides the possibility of integration with a waveguide, we expect that a slot antenna can be applied to active devices such as light emitting diodes or lasers for the future.
Wearable devices often employ optical sensors, such as photoplethysmography sensors, for detecting heart rates or other biochemical factors. Pulse waveforms, rather than simply detecting heartbeats, can clarify arterial conditions. However, most optical sensor designs require close skin contact to reduce power consumption while obtaining good quality signals without distortion. We have designed a detection-gap-independent optical sensor array using divergence-beam-controlled slit lasers and distributed photodiodes in a pulse-detection device wearable over the wrist’s radial artery. It achieves high biosignal quality and low power consumption. The top surface of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser of 850 nm wavelength was covered by Au film with an open slit of width between 500 nm and 1500 nm, which generated laser emissions across a large divergence angle along an axis orthogonal to the slit direction. The sensing coverage of the slit laser diode (LD) marks a 50% improvement over nonslit LD sensor coverage. The slit LD sensor consumes 100% more input power than the nonslit LD sensor to obtain similar optical output power. The slit laser sensor showed intermediate performance between LD and light-emitting diode sensors. Thus, designing sensors with multiple-slit LD arrays can provide useful and convenient ways for incorporating optical sensors in wrist-wearable devices.
We present an optical slot antenna integrated with a metal-dielectric-metal (MIM) plasmonic waveguide. By integrating
optical slot antenna on top metal layer of MIM waveguide, we can couple the plasmon guide mode into the feed antenna
directly. The resonantly excited slot antenna works as a magnetic dipole and then radiates in dipole-like far-field pattern.
By adding an auxiliary groove structure along with the slot antenna, the radiation can be directed into the direction where
the structure determined. The demonstrated optical slot antenna integrated with a plasmonic waveguide can be used as a
“plasmonic via” in plasmonic nanocircuits.
Patterning of colloidal quantum dot (QD) of a nanometer resolution is important for potential applications in micro- or nanophotonics. Several patterning techniques such as polymer composites, molecular key-lock methods, inkjet printing, and the microcontact printing of QDs have been successfully developed and applied to various plasmonic applications. However, these methods are not easily adapted to conventional complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible processes because of either limits in fabrication resolutions or difficulties in sub-100-nm alignment. Here, we present an adaptation of a conventional lift-off method for the patterning of colloidal QDs. This simple method can be later applied to CMOS processes by changing electron beam lithography to photolithography for building up photon-generation elements in various planar geometries. Various shapes formed by colloidal QD clusters such as straight lines, rings, and dot patterns with sub-100-nm size could be fabricated. The patterned structures show sub-10-nm positioning with good fluorescence properties and well-defined sidewall profiles. To demonstrate the applicability of our method, we present a surface plasmon generator from a QD cluster.
The patterning of colloidal quantum dots with nanometer resolution is essential for their application in photonics and plasmonics. Several patterning approaches, such as the use of polymer composites, molecular lock-and-key methods, inkjet printing, and microcontact printing of quantum dots, have limits in fabrication resolution, positioning and the variation of structural shapes. Herein, we present an adaptation of a conventional liftoff method for patterning colloidal quantum dots. This simple method is easy and requires no complicated processes. Using this method, we formed straight lines, rings, and dot patterns of colloidal quantum dots on metallic substrates. Notably, patterned lines approximately 10 nm wide were fabricated. The patterned structures display high resolution, accurate positioning, and well-defined sidewall profiles. To demonstrate the applicability of our method, we present a surface plasmon generator elaborated from quantum dots.
A design is proposed to significantly increase the absorption of a thin layer of absorbing material such as amorphous
silicon. This is achieved by patterning a one-dimensional photonic crystal (1DPC) in this layer. Indeed, by coupling the
incident light into slow Bloch modes of the 1DPC, we can control the photon lifetime and then, enhance the absorption
integrated over the whole solar spectrum. Optimal parameters of the 1DPC maximize the integrated absorption in the
wavelength range of interest, up to 45% in both S and P polarization states instead of 33% for the unpatterned, 100 nm
thick amorphous silicon layer. Moreover, the absorption is tolerant with respect to fabrication errors, and remains
relatively stable if the angle of incidence is changed.
We report on enhancement of thin layer absorption through photonic band-engineering of a photonic crystal
structure. We realized amorphous silicon (aSi) photonic crystals, where slow light modes improve absorption
efficiency. We show through simulation that an increase of the absorption by a factor of 1.5 is expected for a
model film of 100nm of aSi. The proposal is then validated by an experimental demonstration, showing a 50%
increase of the absorption of a demonstrator layer of 1μm thick aSi over a spectral range of 0.32 0.76μm.
This shows new possibilities of increasing the efficiency of thin film photovoltaic cells. Photonic crystal based
architecture are proposed and discussed.
A new concept of ultra-thin film photovoltaic solar cell including a planar photonic crystal is proposed. The goal is to
couple the incident light into broad resonances guided in the absorbing layer. To achieve this, a periodic lattice is
patterned within the active layer, for example made of holes in amorphous silicon. By adjusting the pattern dimensions,
the spectral position and quality factor of these resonances can be controlled so as to optimise the global absorption.
Design details will be discussed in this communication.
We introduce a compound semiconductor based omnidirectional reflector. A four layer pair stack of GaAs/AlAs was grown epitaxially using molecular beam epitaxy, which was then converted to a GaAs/Al2O3 multilayer stack by selective oxidation of the AlAs layers. The resultant one-dimensional photonic crystal exhibited omnidirectional reflection properties in near infrared wavelength range below 1μm. Reflectance spectra measured at various incidence angles and polarizations were observed to be in good agreements with theoretically simulated results.
The proposed one-dimensional photonic crystal waveguide structure can be optimized in three steps as outlined below. At first the imaginary part of the Bloch wavevector inside the 1D PC can be made maximum so that the evanescent light field decays most rapidly and thus the confinement factor of a guided mode becomes maximized when the waveguide is completed. This condition uniquely defines the thickness of two layers in 1D PC. Secondly, the omnidirectional mirror condition can be further enforced for the 1D PC to achieve complete inhibition of light escape in the vertical direction. This can be done by ensuring that for a given frequency the point, (ω, ωn0/c), on TM lightline falls in the forbidden bandgap. Lastly, the thickness of the centerguiding layer can be uniquely determined for given frequency and propagation constant, considering structural symmetry and phase matching condition between lights outgoing from and incoming to the guiding layer.
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