No Arabic abstract
Nanoscale phase-control is one of the most powerful approaches to specifically tailor electrical fields in modern nanophotonics. Especially the precise sub-wavelength assembly of many individual nano-building-blocks has given rise to exciting new materials as diverse as metamaterials, for miniaturizing optics, or 3D assembled plasmonic structures for biosensing applications. Despite its fundamental importance, the phase-response of individual nanostructures is experimentally extremely challenging to visualize. Here, we address this shortcoming and measure the quantitative scattering phase of different nanomaterials such as gold nanorods and spheres as well as dielectric nanoparticles. Beyond reporting spectrally resolved responses, with phase-changes close to pi when passing the particles plasmon resonance, we devise a simple method for distinguishing different plasmonic and dielectric particles purely based on their phase behavior. Finally, we integrate this novel approach in a single-shot two-color scheme, capable of directly identifying different types of nanoparticles on one sample, from a single widefield image.
In this work, we present a novel technique to directly measure the phase shift of the optical signal scattered by single plasmonic nanoparticles in a diffraction-limited laser focus. We accomplish this by equipping an inverted confocal microscope with a Michelson interferometer and scanning single nanoparticles through the focal volume while recording interferograms of the scattered and a reference wave for each pixel. For the experiments, lithographically prepared gold nanorods where used, since their plasmon resonances can be controlled via their aspect ratio. We have developed a theoretical model for image formation in confocal scattering microscopy for nanoparticles considerably smaller than the diffraction limited focus We show that the phase shift observed for particles with different longitudinal particle plasmon resonances can be well explained by the harmonic oscillator model. The direct measurement of the phase shift can further improve the understanding of the elastic scattering of individual gold nanoparticles with respect to their plasmonic properties.
Vacuum fluctuations are a fundamental feature of quantized fields. It is usually assumed that observations connected to vacuum fluctuations require a system well isolated from other influences. In this work, we demonstrate that effects of the quantum vacuum can already occur in simple colloidal nano-assemblies prepared by wet chemistry. We claim that the electromagnetic field fluctuations at the zero-point level saturate the absorption of dye molecules self-assembled at the surface of plasmonic nano-resonators. For this effect to occur, reaching the strong coupling regime between the plasmons and excitons is not required. This intriguing effect of vacuum-induced saturation (VISA) is discussed within a simple quantum optics picture and demonstrated by comparing the optical spectra of hybrid gold-core dye-shell nanorods to electromagnetic simulations.
In this article, a 2D plasmonic waveguide loaded with all dielectric anisotropic metamaterial, consisting of alternative layers of Si-SiO2, has been theoretically proposed and numerically analyzed. Main characteristics of waveguide i.e. propagation constant, propagation length and normalized mode area have been calculated for different values of ridge width and height at telecommunication wavelength. The respective 1D structure of the waveguide has been analytically solved for the anisotropic ridge as a single uniaxial medium with dielectric tensor defined by Effective Medium Theory (EMT). The 2D structure has been analyzed numerically through FEM simulation using Mode analysis module in Comsol Multiphysics. Both the EMT and real multilayer structure have been considered in numerical simulations. Such structure with all dielectric metamaterial provides an extra degree of freedom namely fill factor, fraction of Si layer in a Si-SiO2 unit cell, to tune the propagation characteristics compared to the conventional DLSSP waveguide. A wide range of variations in all the characteristics have been observed for different fill factor values. Besides, the effect of the first interface layer has also been considered. Though all dielectric metamaterial has already been utilized in photonic waveguide as cladding, the implementation in plasmonic waveguide has not been investigated yet to our best knowledge. The proposed device might be a potential in deep sub-wavelength optics, PIC and optoelectronics.
The strong-field control of plasmonic nanosystems opens up new perspectives for nonlinear plasmonic spectroscopy and petahertz electronics. Questions, however, remain regarding the nature of nonlinear light-matter interactions at sub-wavelength spatial and ultrafast temporal scales. Addressing this challenge, we investigated the strong-field control of the plasmonic response of Au nanoshells with a SiO$_2$ core to an intense laser pulse. We show that the photoelectron energy spectrum from these core-shell nanoparticles displays a striking transition between the weak and strong-field regime. This observed transition agrees with the prediction of our modified Mie-theory simulation that incorporates the nonlinear dielectric nanoshell response. The demonstrated intensity-dependent optical control of the plasmonic response in prototypical core-shell nanoparticles paves the way towards ultrafast switching and opto-electronic signal modulation with more complex nanostructures.
Recent advances in nanotechnologies have prompted the need for tools to accurately and non invasively manipulate individual nanoobjects. Among the possible strategies, optical forces have been widely used to enable nano optical tweezers capable of trapping or moving a specimen with unprecedented accuracy. Here, we propose an architecture consisting of a nanotip excited with a plasmonic vortex enabling effective dynamical control of nanoparticles in three dimensions. The optical field generated by the structure can be used to manipulate single dielectric nanoparticles acting on the total angular momentum of light used to illuminate the structure. We demonstrate that it is possible to stably trap or force the beaming of the particle from specific points, thus enabling a new platform for nanoparticle manipulation and sorting.