Volume 6, Issue 1

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) possess both remarkable optical properties and high potential for integration in various photonic devices. We overview, here, recent progress in CNT applications in fibre optics putting particular emphasis on fibre lasers. We discuss fabrication and characterisation of different CNTs, development of CNT-based saturable absorbers (CNT-SA), their integration and operation in fibre laser cavities putting emphasis on state-of-the-art fibre lasers, mode locked using CNT-SA. We discuss new design concepts of high-performance ultrafast operation fibre lasers covering ytterbium (Yb), bismuth (Bi), erbium (Er), thulium (Tm) and holmium (Ho)-doped fibre lasers.

Nonlinear optics, when combined with microscopy, is known to provide advantages including novel contrast, deep tissue observation, and minimal invasiveness. In addition, special nonlinearities, such as switch on/off and saturation, can enhance the spatial resolution below the diffraction limit, revolutionizing the field of optical microscopy. These nonlinear imaging techniques are extremely useful for biological studies on various scales from molecules to cells to tissues. Nevertheless, in most cases, nonlinear optical interaction requires strong illumination, typically at least gigawatts per square centimeter intensity. Such strong illumination can cause significant phototoxicity or even photodamage to fragile biological samples. Therefore, it is highly desirable to find mechanisms that allow the reduction of illumination intensity. Surface plasmon, which is the collective oscillation of electrons in metal under light excitation, is capable of significantly enhancing the local field around the metal nanostructures and thus boosting up the efficiency of nonlinear optical interactions of the surrounding materials or of the metal itself. In this mini-review, we discuss the recent progress of plasmonics in nonlinear optical microscopy with a special focus on biological applications. The advancement of nonlinear imaging modalities (including incoherent/coherent Raman scattering, two/three-photon luminescence, and second/third harmonic generations that have been amalgamated with plasmonics), as well as the novel subdiffraction limit imaging techniques based on nonlinear behaviors of plasmonic scattering, is addressed.

The photonic spin Hall effect (SHE) originates from the interplay between the photon-spin (polarization) and the trajectory (extrinsic orbital angular momentum) of light, i.e. the spin-orbit interaction. Metasurfaces, metamaterials with a reduced dimensionality, exhibit exceptional abilities for controlling the spin-orbit interaction and thereby manipulating the photonic SHE. Spin-redirection phase and Pancharatnam-Berry phase are the manifestations of spin-orbit interaction. The former is related to the evolution of the propagation direction and the latter to the manipulation with polarization state. Two distinct forms of splitting based on these two types of geometric phases can be induced by the photonic SHE in metasurfaces: the spin-dependent splitting in position space and in momentum space. The introduction of Pacharatnam-Berry phases, through space-variant polarization manipulations with metasurfaces, enables new approaches for fabricating the spin-Hall devices. Here, we present a short review of photonic SHE in metasurfaces and outline the opportunities in spin photonics.

Gold nanoparticles have been the center of interest for scientists since many decades. Within the last 20 years, the research in that field has soared with the possibility to design and study nanoparticles with controlled shapes. From spheres to more complex shapes such as stars, or anisotropic architectures like rods or bipyramids, these new systems feature plasmonic properties making them the tools of choice for studies on light-matter interactions. In that context, fluorescence quenching and enhancement by gold nanostructures is a growing field of research. In this review, we report a non-exhaustive summary of the synthetic modes for various shapes and sizes of isotropic and anisotropic nanoparticles. We then focus on fluorescent studies of these gold nano-objects, either considering “bare” particles (without modifications) or hybrid particles (surface interaction with a chromophore). In the latter case, the well-known metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) is more particularly developed; the mechanisms of MEF are discussed in terms of the additional radiative and non-radiative decay rates caused by several parameters such as the vicinity of the chromophore to the metal or the size and shape of the nanostructures.

Technologies for efficient generation and fast scanning of narrow free-space laser beams find major applications in three-dimensional (3D) imaging and mapping, like Lidar for remote sensing and navigation, and secure free-space optical communications. The ultimate goal for such a system is to reduce its size, weight, and power consumption, so that it can be mounted on, e.g. drones and autonomous cars. Moreover, beam scanning should ideally be done at video frame rates, something that is beyond the capabilities of current opto-mechanical systems. Photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology holds the promise of achieving low-cost, compact, robust and energy-efficient complex optical systems. PICs integrate, for example, lasers, modulators, detectors, and filters on a single piece of semiconductor, typically silicon or indium phosphide, much like electronic integrated circuits. This technology is maturing fast, driven by high-bandwidth communications applications, and mature fabrication facilities. State-of-the-art commercial PICs integrate hundreds of elements, and the integration of thousands of elements has been shown in the laboratory. Over the last few years, there has been a considerable research effort to integrate beam steering systems on a PIC, and various beam steering demonstrators based on optical phased arrays have been realized. Arrays of up to thousands of coherent emitters, including their phase and amplitude control, have been integrated, and various applications have been explored. In this review paper, I will present an overview of the state of the art of this technology and its opportunities, illustrated by recent breakthroughs.

Aptamers, which are selected in vitro by a technology known as the systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX), represent a crucial recognition element in molecular sensing. With advantages such as good biocompatibility, facile functionalization, and special optical and physical properties, various nanomaterials can protect aptamers from enzymatic degradation and nonspecific binding in living systems and thus provide a preeminent platform for biochemical applications. Coupling aptamers with various nanomaterials offers many opportunities for developing highly sensitive and selective sensing systems. Here, we focus on the recent applications of aptamer-assembled nanomaterials in fluorescent sensing and imaging. Different types of nanomaterials are examined along with their advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we look toward the future of aptamer-assembled nanomaterials.

Motivated by the recent progress in the nanofabrication field and the increasing demand for cost-effective, portable, and easy-to-use point-of-care platforms, localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) biosensors have been subjected to a great scientific interest in the last few years. The progress observed in the research of this nanoplasmonic technology is remarkable not only from a nanostructure fabrication point of view but also in the complete development and integration of operative devices and their application. The potential benefits that LSPR biosensors can offer, such as sensor miniaturization, multiplexing opportunities, and enhanced performances, have quickly positioned them as an interesting candidate in the design of lab-on-a-chip (LOC) optical biosensor platforms. This review covers specifically the most significant achievements that occurred in recent years towards the integration of this technology in compact devices, with views of obtaining LOC devices. We also discuss the most relevant examples of the use of the nanoplasmonic biosensors for real bioanalytical and clinical applications from assay development and validation to the identification of the implications, requirements, and challenges to be surpassed to achieve fully operative devices.

The ability to engineer and shape the phase profile of optical beams is in the heart of any optical element. Be it a simple lens or a sophisticated holographic element, the functionality of such components is dictated by their spatial phase response. In contrast to conventional optical components which rely on thickness variation to induce a phase profile, metasurfaces facilitate the realization of arbitrary phase distributions using large arrays with sub-wavelength and ultrathin (tens of nanometers) features. Such components can be easily realized using a single lithographic step and is highly suited for patterning a variety of substrates, including nonplanar and soft surfaces. In this article, we review the recent developments, potential, and opportunities of metasurfaces applications. We focus primarily on flat optical devices, holography, and beam-shaping applications as these are the key ingredients needed for the development of a new generation of optical devices which could find widespread applications in photonics.

The unique optical properties possessed by plasmonic noble metal nanostructures in consequence of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) are useful in diverse applications like photovoltaics, sensing, non-linear optics, hydrogen generation, and photocatalytic pollutant degradation. The incorporation of plasmonic metal nanostructures into solar cells provides enhancement in light absorption and scattering cross-section (via LSPR), tunability of light absorption profile especially in the visible region of the solar spectrum, and more efficient charge carrier separation, hence maximizing the photovoltaic efficiency. This review discusses about the recent development of different plasmonic metal nanostructures, mainly based on Au or Ag, and their applications in promising third-generation solar cells such as dye-sensitized solar cells, quantum dot-based solar cells, and perovskite solar cells.

Although the nonradiative decay of surface plasmons was once thought to be only a parasitic process within the plasmonic and metamaterial communities, hot carriers generated from nonradiative plasmon decay offer new opportunities for harnessing absorption loss. Hot carriers can be harnessed for applications ranging from chemical catalysis, photothermal heating, photovoltaics, and photodetection. Here, we present a review on the recent developments concerning photodetection based on hot electrons. The basic principles and recent progress on hot electron photodetectors are summarized. The challenges and potential future directions are also discussed.

Metallic nanostructures have received great attention due to their ability to generate surface plasmon resonances, which are collective oscillations of conduction electrons of a material excited by an electromagnetic wave. Plasmonic metal nanostructures are able to localize and manipulate the light at the nanoscale and, therefore, are attractive building blocks for various emerging applications. In particular, hollow nanostructures are promising plasmonic materials as cavities are known to have better plasmonic properties than their solid counterparts thanks to the plasmon hybridization mechanism. The hybridization of the plasmons results in the enhancement of the plasmon fields along with more homogeneous distribution as well as the reduction of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) quenching due to absorption. In this review, we summarize the efforts on the synthesis of hollow metal nanostructures with an emphasis on the galvanic replacement reaction. In the second part of this review, we discuss the advancements on the characterization of plasmonic properties of hollow nanostructures, covering the single nanoparticle experiments, nanoscale characterization via electron energy-loss spectroscopy and modeling and simulation studies. Examples of the applications, i.e. sensing, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, photothermal ablation therapy of cancer, drug delivery or catalysis among others, where hollow nanostructures perform better than their solid counterparts, are also evaluated.

Optical spin-Hall effect (OSHE) is a spin-dependent transportation phenomenon of light as an analogy to its counterpart in condensed matter physics. Although being predicted and observed for decades, this effect has recently attracted enormous interests due to the development of metamaterials and metasurfaces, which can provide us tailor-made control of the light-matter interaction and spin-orbit interaction. In parallel to the developments of OSHE, metasurface gives us opportunities to manipulate OSHE in achieving a stronger response, a higher efficiency, a higher resolution, or more degrees of freedom in controlling the wave front. Here, we give an overview of the OSHE based on metasurface-enabled geometric phases in different kinds of configurational spaces and their applications on spin-dependent beam steering, focusing, holograms, structured light generation, and detection. These developments mark the beginning of a new era of spin-enabled optics for future optical components.

As modern complementary-metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuitry rapidly approaches fundamental speed and bandwidth limitations, optical platforms have become promising candidates to circumvent these limits and facilitate massive increases in computational power. To compete with high density CMOS circuitry, optical technology within the plasmonic regime is desirable, because of the sub-diffraction limited confinement of electromagnetic energy, large optical bandwidth, and ultrafast processing capabilities. As such, nanoplasmonic waveguides act as nanoscale conduits for optical signals, thereby forming the backbone of such a platform. In recent years, significant research interest has developed to uncover the fundamental physics governing phenomena occurring within nanoplasmonic waveguides, and to implement unique optical devices. In doing so, a wide variety of material properties have been exploited. CMOS-compatible materials facilitate passive plasmonic routing devices for directing the confined radiation. Magnetic materials facilitate time-reversal symmetry breaking, aiding in the development of nonreciprocal isolators or modulators. Additionally, strong confinement and enhancement of electric fields within such waveguides require the use of materials with high nonlinear coefficients to achieve increased nonlinear optical phenomenon in a nanoscale footprint. Furthermore, this enhancement and confinement of the fields facilitate the study of strong-field effects within the solid-state environment of the waveguide. Here, we review current state-of-the-art physics and applications of nanoplasmonic waveguides pertaining to passive, magnetoplasmonic, nonlinear, and strong-field devices. Such components are essential elements in integrated optical circuitry, and each fulfill specific roles in truly developing a chip-scale plasmonic computing architecture.

For the first time, a facile, ultrafast, ammonia-driven microwave-assisted synthesis of high-quality nitrogen-doped graphene quantum dots (NGQDs) at room temperature and atmospheric pressure is presented. This one-step method is very cheap, environment friendly, and suitable for large-scale production. The as-synthesized NGQDs consisting of one to three graphene monolayers exhibit highly crystalline quality with an average size of 5.3 nm. A new fluorescence (FL) emission peak at 390 nm is observed, which might be attributed to the doped nitrogen atoms into the GQDs. An interesting red-shift is observed by comparing the FL excitation spectra to the UV-visible absorption spectra. Based on the optical properties, the detailed Jablonski diagram representing the energy level structure of NGQDs is derived.

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a promising semiconductor that is suitable for bioimaging applications due to its intrinsic defect fluorescence. However, ZnO generally suffers from poor photostability. We report room-temperature single-photon emission from optical defects found in ZnO nanoparticles (NPs) formed by ion implantation followed by thermal oxidation in a silica substrate. We conduct a thorough investigation into the photophysics of a particularly bright defect and identify other single emitters within the NPs. Photostability was observed when the NPs were removed from the growth substrate and taken up by skin cells for in vitro imaging.

The regular arrangement of metal nanoparticles influences their plasmonic behavior. It has been previously demonstrated that the coupling between diffracted waves and plasmon modes can give rise to extremely narrow plasmon resonances. This is the case when the single-particle localized surface plasmon resonance ( λ LSP ) is very close in value to the Rayleigh anomaly wavelength ( λ RA ) of the nanoparticles array. In this paper, we performed angle-resolved extinction measurements on a 2D array of gold nano-cylinders designed to fulfil the condition λ RA < λ LSP . Varying the angle of excitation offers a unique possibility to finely modify the value of λ RA , thus gradually approaching the condition of coupling between diffracted waves and plasmon modes. The experimental observation of a collective dipolar resonance has been interpreted by exploiting a simplified model based on the coupling of evanescent diffracted waves with plasmon modes. Among other plasmon modes, the measurement technique has also evidenced and allowed the study of a vertical plasmon mode, only visible in TM polarization at off-normal excitation incidence. The results of numerical simulations, based on the periodic Green’s tensor formalism, match well with the experimental transmission spectra and show fine details that could go unnoticed by considering only experimental data.

Decorating semiconductor surfaces with plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) is considered a viable solution for enhancing the absorptive properties of photovoltaic and photodetecting devices. We propose to deposit silver NPs on top of a semiconductor wafer by a cheap and fast electroless plating technique. Optical characterization confirms that the random array of electroless-deposited NPs improves absorption by up to 20% in a broadband of near-infrared frequencies from the bandgap edge to 2000 nm. Due to the small filling fraction of particles, the reflection in the visible range is practically unchanged, which points to the possible applications of such deposition method for harvesting photons in nanophotonics and photovoltaics. The broadband absorption is a consequence of the resonant behavior of particles with different shapes and sizes, which strongly localize the incident light at the interface of a high-index semiconductor substrate. Our hypothesis is substantiated by examining the plasmonic response of the electroless-deposited NPs using both electron energy loss spectroscopy and numerical calculations.

Manufacturing variations are becoming an unavoidable issue in modern fabrication processes; therefore, it is crucial to be able to include stochastic uncertainties in the design phase. In this paper, integrated photonic coupled ring resonator filters are considered as an example of significant interest. The sparsity structure in photonic circuits is exploited to construct a sparse combined generalized polynomial chaos model, which is then used to analyze related statistics and perform robust design optimization. Simulation results show that the optimized circuits are more robust to fabrication process variations and achieve a reduction of 11%–35% in the mean square errors of the 3 dB bandwidth compared to unoptimized nominal designs.

Dynamic rotation and deformation of human red blood cells (RBCs) are extremely important to investigate the survival and mechanical features of cells, which will be of great physiological and pathological significance. Here, we report an optical approach that is capable of both rotating and deforming RBCs with light from two tapered fiber probes (TFPs). With laser beams at the wavelength of 980 nm injected into the TFPs, a single RBC was rotated around different axes while single or multiple RBCs were stretched by adjusting the points of action and magnitude of the optical forces from the TFPs. The biological safety of the approach was also discussed by taking the laser power required into account.

We solve the Maxwell and heat equations self-consistently for metal nanoparticles under intense continuous wave (CW) illumination. Unlike previous studies, we rely on experimentally-measured data for metal permittivity for increasing temperature and for the visible spectral range. We show that the thermal nonlinearity of the metal can lead to substantial deviations from the predictions of the linear model for the temperature and field distribution and, thus, can explain qualitatively the strong nonlinear scattering from such configurations observed experimentally. We also show that the incompleteness of existing data of the temperature dependence of the thermal properties of the system prevents reaching a quantitative agreement between the measured and calculated scattering data. This modeling approach is essential for the identification of the underlying physical mechanism responsible for the thermo-optical nonlinearity of the metal and should be adopted in all applications of high-temperature nonlinear plasmonics, especially for refractory metals, for both CW and pulsed illumination.

Ultracompact chip-integrated all-optical diode is realized experimentally in a plasmonic microstructure, consisting of a plasmonic waveguide side-coupled two asymmetric plasmonic composite nanocavities covered with a multicomponent nanocomposite layer, formed directly in a plasmonic circuit. Extremely large optical nonlinearity enhancement is obtained for the multicomponent nanocomposite cover layer, originating from resonant excitation, slow-light effect, and field enhancement effect. Nonreciprocal transmission was achieved based on the difference in the shift magnitude of the transparency window centers of two asymmetric plasmonic nanocavities induced by the signal light, itself, for the forward and backward propagation cases. An ultralow threshold incident light power of 145 μW (corresponding to a threshold intensity of 570 kW/cm 2 ) is realized, which is reduced by seven orders of magnitude compared with previous reports. An ultrasmall feature size of 2 μm and a transmission contrast ratio of 15 dB are obtained simultaneously.

The transverse optical structure of two orb-weaver (family Araneidae ) spider dragline silks was investigated using a variant of the inverse-scattering technique. Immersing the silks in a closely refractive index-matched liquid, the minimum achievable image contrast was greater than expected for an optically homogeneous silk, given what is currently known about the optical absorption of these silks. This “excess contrast” indicated the presence of transverse optical structure within the spider silk. Applying electromagnetic scattering theory to a transparent double cylinder, the minimum achievable irradiance contrast for the Plebs eburnus and Argiope keyserlingi dragline silks was determined to be consistent with step index refractive index contrasts of 1−4×10 −4 and 6–7×10 −4 , respectively, supposing outer-layer thicknesses consistent with previous TEM studies (50 nm and 100 nm, respectively). The possibility of graded index refractive index contrasts within the spider silks is also discussed. This is the strongest evidence, to date, that there is a refractive index contrast associated with the layered morphology of spider silks and/or variation of proportion of nanocrystalline components within the spider silk structure. The method is more generally applicable to optical micro-fibers, including those with refractive index variations on a sub-wavelength scale.

A semi-analytical formalism for the optical properties of a metal-insulator-metal periodic nanostructure using coupled-mode theory is presented. This structure consists in a dielectric layer in between two metallic layers with periodic one-dimensional nanoslit corrugation. The model is developed using multiple-scattering formalism, which defines transmission and reflection coefficients for each of the interface as a semi-infinite medium. Total transmission is then calculated using a summation of the multiple paths of light inside the structure. This method allows finding an exact solution for the transmission problem in every dimension regime, as long as a sufficient number of diffraction orders and guided modes are considered for the structure. The resonant modes of the structure are found to be related to the metallic slab only and to a combination of both the metallic slab and dielectric layer. This model also allows describing the resonant behavior of the system in the limit of a small dielectric layer, for which discontinuities in the dispersion curves are found. These discontinuities result from the out-of-phase interference of the different diffraction orders of the system, which account for field interaction for both inner interfaces of the structure.

An all-solid waveguide array fiber (WAF) is one kind of special microstructured optical fiber in which the higher-index rods are periodically distributed in a low-index silica host to form the transverse two-dimensional photonic crystal. In this paper, one kind of multidimensional microstructured optical fiber photonic device is proposed by using electric arc discharge method to fabricate periodic tapers along the fiber axis. By tuning the applied magnetic field intensity, the propagation characteristics of the all-solid WAF integrated with magnetic fluid are periodically modulated in both radial and axial directions. Experimental results show that the wavelength changes little while the transmission loss increases for an applied magnetic field intensity range from 0 to 500 Oe. The magnetic field sensitivity is 0.055 dB/Oe within the linear range from 50 to 300 Oe. Meanwhile, the all-solid WAF has very similar thermal expansion coefficient for both high- and low-refractive index glasses, and thermal drifts have a little effect on the mode profile. The results show that the temperature-induced transmission loss is <0.3 dB from 26°C to 44°C. Further tuning coherent coupling of waveguides and controlling light propagation, the all-solid WAF would be found great potential applications to develop new micro-nano photonic devices for optical communications and optical sensing applications.

In this study, nanoscale integrated all-optical XNOR, XOR, and NAND logic gates were realized based on all-optical tunable on-chip plasmon-induced transparency in plasmonic circuits. A large nonlinear enhancement was achieved with an organic composite cover layer based on the resonant excitation-enhancing nonlinearity effect, slow light effect, and field confinement effect provided by the plasmonic nanocavity mode, which ensured a low excitation power of 200 μW that is three orders of magnitude lower than the values in previous reports. A feature size below 600 nm was achieved, which is a one order of magnitude lower compared to previous reports. The contrast ratio between the output logic states “1” and “0” reached 29 dB, which is among the highest values reported to date. Our results not only provide an on-chip platform for the study of nonlinear and quantum optics but also open up the possibility for the realization of nanophotonic processing chips based on nonlinear plasmonics.