No Arabic abstract
In this article, a chiral plasmonic hydrogen-sensing platform using palladium-based nanohelices is demonstrated. Such 3D chiral nanostructures fabricated by nanoglancing angle deposition exhibit strong circular dichroism both experimentally and theoretically. The chiroptical properties of the palladium nanohelices are altered upon hydrogen uptake and sensitively depend on the hydrogen concentration. Such properties are well suited for remote and spark-free hydrogen sensing in the flammable range. Hysteresis is reduced, when an increasing amount of gold is utilized in the palladium-gold hybrid helices. As a result, the linearity of the circular dichroism in response to hydrogen is significantly improved. The chiral plasmonic sensor scheme is of potential interest for hydrogen-sensing applications, where good linearity and high sensitivity are required.
The extraordinary sensitivity of plasmonic sensors is well known in the optics and photonics community. These sensors exploit simultaneously the enhancement and the localization of electromagnetic fields close to the interface between a metal and a dielectric. This enables, for example, the design of integrated biochemical sensors at scales far below the diffraction limit. Despite their practical realization and successful commercialization, the sensitivity and associated precision of plasmonic sensors are starting to reach their fundamental classical limit given by quantum fluctuations of light -- known as the shot-noise limit. To improve the sensing performance of these sensors beyond the classical limit, quantum resources are increasingly being employed. This area of research has become known as `quantum plasmonic sensing and it has experienced substantial activity in recent years for applications in chemical and biological sensing. This review aims to cover both plasmonic and quantum techniques for sensing, and shows how they have been merged to enhance the performance of plasmonic sensors beyond traditional methods. We discuss the general framework developed for quantum plasmonic sensing in recent years, covering the basic theory behind the advancements made, and describe the important works that made these advancements. We also describe several key works in detail, highlighting their motivation, the working principles behind them, and their future impact. The intention of the review is to set a foundation for a burgeoning field of research that is currently being explored out of intellectual curiosity and for a wide range of practical applications in biochemistry, medicine, and pharmaceutical research.
One of the fundamental challenges in nanophotonics is to gain full control over nanoscale optical elements. The precise spatiotemporal arrangement determines their interactions and collective behavior. To this end, DNA nanotechnology is employed as an unprecedented tool to create nanophotonic devices with excellent spatial addressability and temporal programmability. However, most of the current DNA-assembled nanophotonic devices can only reconfigure among random or very few defined states. Here, we demonstrate a DNA-assembled rotary plasmonic nanoclock. In this system, a rotor gold nanorod can carry out directional and reversible 360 degree rotation with respect to a stator gold nanorod, transitioning among 16 well-defined configurations powered by DNA fuels. The full-turn rotation process is monitored by optical spectroscopy in real time. We further demonstrate autonomous rotation of the plasmonic nanoclock powered by DNAzyme-RNA interactions. Such assembly approaches pave a viable route towards advanced nanophotonic systems entirely from the bottom-up.
Topological photonics has revolutionized our understanding of light propagation, but most of current studies are focused on designing a static photonic structure. Developing a dynamic photonic topological platform to switch multiple topological functionalities at ultrafast speed is still a great challenge. Here we demonstrate an ultrafast reprogrammable plasmonic topological insulator, where the topological propagation route can be dynamically steered at nanosecond-level switching time, namely more than 10^7 times faster than the current state-of-the-art. This orders-of-magnitude improvement is achieved by using ultrafast electronic switches in an innovative way to implement the programmability. Due to the flexible programmability, many existing photonic topological functionalities can be integrated into this agile topological platform. Our work brings the current studies of photonic topological insulators to a digital and intelligent era, which could boost the development of intelligent and ultrafast photoelectric devices with built-in topological protection.
Arrays of metallic particles patterned on a substrate have emerged as a promising design for on-chip plasmonic lasers. In past examples of such devices, the periodic particles provided feedback at a single resonance wavelength, and organic dye molecules were used as the gain material. Here, we introduce a flexible template-based fabrication method that allows a broader design space for Ag particle-array lasers. Instead of dye molecules, we integrate colloidal quantum dots (QDs), which offer better photostability and wavelength tunability. Our fabrication approach also allows us to easily adjust the refractive index of the substrate and the QD-film thickness. Exploiting these capabilities, we demonstrate not only single-wavelength lasing but dual-wavelength lasing via two distinct strategies. First, by using particle arrays with rectangular lattice symmetries, we obtain feedback from two orthogonal directions. The two output wavelengths from this laser can be selected individually using a linear polarizer. Second, by adjusting the QD-film thickness, we use higher-order transverse waveguide modes in the QD film to obtain dual-wavelength lasing at normal and off-normal angles from a symmetric square array. We thus show that our approach offers various design possibilities to tune the laser output.
Graphene-based photodetectors, taking advantage of high carrier mobility and broadband absorption in graphene, have recently experienced rapid development. However, their performances with respect to the responsivity and bandwidth are still limited by either weak light-graphene interaction or large resistance-capacitance product. Here, we demonstrate a waveguide coupled integrated graphene plasmonic photodetector on the silicon-on-insulator platform. Benefiting from plasmonic enhanced graphene-light interactions and subwavelength confinement of the optical energy, we present a small-footprint graphene-plasmonic photodetector with bandwidth beyond 110GHz and intrinsic responsivity of 360mA/W. Attributed to the unique electronic bandstructure of graphene and its ultra-broadband absorption, the operational wavelength range extending beyond mid-infrared, and possibly further, can be anticipated. Our results show that the combination of graphene with plasmonic devices has great potential to realize ultra-compact and high-speed optoelectronic devices for graphene-based optical interconnects.