No Arabic abstract
Encoding information in light polarization is of great importance in facilitating optical data storage (ODS) for information security and data storage capacity escalation. However, despite recent advances in nanophotonic techniques vastly enhancing the feasibility of applying polarization channels, the data fidelity in reconstructed bits has been constrained by severe crosstalks occurring between varied polarization angles during data recording and reading process, which gravely hindered the utilization of this technique in practice. In this paper, we demonstrate an ultra-low crosstalk polarization-encoding multilayer optical data storage technique for high-fidelity data recording and retrieving by utilizing a nanofibre-based nanocomposite film involving highly aligned gold nanorods (GNRs). With parallelizing the gold nanorods in the recording medium, the information carrier configuration minimizes miswriting and misreading possibilities for information input and output, respectively, compared with its randomly self-assembled counterparts. The enhanced data accuracy has significantly improved the bit recall fidelity that is quantified by a correlation coefficient higher than 0.99. It is anticipated that the demonstrated technique can facilitate the development of multiplexing ODS for a greener future.
Engineering the transport of radiation and its interaction with matter using non-Hermiticity, particularly through spectral degeneracies known as exceptional points(EPs), is an emerging field that has both fundamental and practical implications. Chiral behavior in the vicinity of EPs opens new opportunities in radiation control, such as unidirectional reflection or lasing with potential applications in areas ranging from cavity quantum electrodynamics and spectral filtering to sensing and thermal imaging. However, tuning and stabilizing a system to a discrete EP in parameter space is a challenging task: either the system is operated close to an EP rather than directly at the EP or the true power of EP is obscured by stability issues. Here, we circumvent this challenge by designing a photonic system that operates on a surface of exceptional points, known as an exceptional surface (ES). We achieve this by using a waveguide-coupled optical resonator with an external feedback loop that induces a nonreciprocal coupling between its frequency degenerate clockwise (CW) and counterclockwise (CCW) traveling modes. By operating the system at critical coupling on the ES, we demonstrate, for the first time, the effect of chiral and degenerate coherent perfect absorption (CPA) where input waves in only one direction are perfectly absorbed. This novel type of CPA-EP is revealed through the observation of the predicted and long-sought squared Lorentzian absorption lineshapes. We expect our results and approach to serve as a bridge between non-Hermitian physics and other fields that rely on radiation engineering.
Metasurface-based lenses (metalenses) offer specific conceptual advantages compared to ordinary refractive lenses. For example, it is possible to tune the focal length of a metalens doublet by varying the relative angle between the two metalenses while fixing their distance, leading to an extremely compact zoom lens. An improved polarization-insensitive design based on silicon-nanocylinders on silica substrates is presented. This design is realized and characterized experimentally at 1550 nm wavelength. By varying the relative angle between the metalenses in steps of 10 degrees, tuning of the doublet focal length is demonstrated from -54 mm to -+3 mm to +54 mm. This results in a zoom factor of an imaging system varying between 1 and 18. For positive focal lengths, the doublet focusing efficiency has a minimum of 34% and a maximum of 83%. Experiment and theory are in very good agreement.
Multilayer metasurfaces (MLMs) represent a versatile type of three-dimensional optical metamaterials that could enable ultra-thin and multi-functional photonic components. Herein we demonstrate an approach to readily fabricate MLMs exploiting a thin film self-rolling technique. As opposed to standard layer-by-layer approaches, all the metasurfaces are defined within a single nanopatterning step, significantly reducing fabrication time and costs. We realize two MLMs platforms relying on widely used nanopatterning techniques, namely focused ion-beam and electron-beam lithographies. A first example are MLMs comprised of nanohole patterns structured into metal-dielectric seed bilayers. The second platform is comprised of vertical stacks of angled plasmonic nanorod arrays separated by thin dielectric layers. Such angled MLMs exhibit a selective response to circularly polarized light, in agreement with previous works relying on layer-by-layer processes. Our approach can pave the way for the efficient prototyping of novel MLMs, such as devices with varying number of layers and configurations that can be fabricated on a single chip.
We demonstrate a dual-rail optical Raman memory inside a polarization interferometer; this enables us to store polarization-encoded information at GHz bandwidths in a room-temperature atomic ensemble. By performing full process tomography on the system we measure up to 97pm1% process fidelity for the storage and retrieval process. At longer storage times, the process fidelity remains high, despite a loss of efficiency. The fidelity is 86pm4% for 1.5 mu s storage time, which is 5,000 times the pulse duration. Hence high fidelity is combined with a large time-bandwidth product. This high performance, with an experimentally simple setup, demonstrates the suitability of the Raman memory for integration into large-scale quantum networks.
We report a comparison of two photonic techniques for single-molecule sensing: fluorescence nanoscopy and optoplasmonic sensing. As the test system, oligonucleotides with and without fluorescent labels are transiently hybridized to complementary docking strands attached to gold nanorods. Comparing the measured single-molecule kinetics helps to examine the influence of fluorescent labels as well as factors arising from different sensing geometries. Our results demonstrate that DNA dissociation is not significantly altered by the fluorescent label, while DNA association is affected by geometric factors in the two techniques. These findings open the door to exploiting plasmonic sensing and fluorescence nanoscopy in a complementary fashion, which will aid in building more powerful sensors and uncovering the intricate effects that influence the behavior of single molecules.