No Arabic abstract
Nanophotonic (nanoplasmonic) structures confine, guide, and concentrate light on the nanoscale. Advancement of nanophotonics critically depends on active nanoscale control of these phenomena. Localized control of the insulator and metallic phases of vanadium dioxide (VO2) would open up a universe of applications in nanophotonics via modulation of the local dielectric environment of nanophotonic structures allowing them to function as active devices. Here we show dynamic reversible control of VO2 insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) locally on the scale of 15 nm or less and control of nanoantennas, observed in the near-field for the first time. Using polarization-selective near-field imaging techniques, we monitor simultaneously the IMT in VO2 and the change of plasmons on gold infrared nanoantennas. Structured nanodomains of the metallic VO2 locally and reversibly transform infrared plasmonic dipolar antennas to monopole antennas. Fundamentally, the IMT in VO2 can be triggered on femtosecond timescale to allow ultrafast nanoscale control of optical phenomena. These unique capabilities open up exciting novel applications in active nanophotonics.
We present numerical studies, nano-fabrication and optical characterization of bowtie nanoantennas demonstrating their superior performance with respect to the electric field enhancement as compared to other Au nanoparticle shapes. For optimized parameters, we found mean intensity enhancement factors >2300x in the feed-gap of the antenna, decreasing to 1300x when introducing a 5nm titanium adhesion layer. Using electron beam lithography we fabricated gold bowties on various substrates with feed-gaps and tip radii as small as 10nm. In polarization resolved measurement we experimentally observed a blue shift of the surface plasmon resonance from 1.72eV to 1.35eV combined with a strong modification of the electric field enhancement in the feed-gap. Under excitation with a 100fs pulsed laser source, we observed non-linear light emission arising from two-photon photoluminescence and second harmonic generation from the gold. The bowtie nanoantenna shows a high potential for outstanding conversion efficiencies and the enhancement of other optical effects which could be exploited in future nanophotonic devices.
We develop a minimal theory for the recently observed metal-insulator transition (MIT) in two-dimensional (2D) moire multilayer transition metal dichalcogenides (mTMD) using Coulomb disorder in the environment as the underlying mechanism. In particular, carrier scattering by random charged impurities leads to an effective 2D MIT approximately controlled by the Ioffe-Regel criterion, which is qualitatively consistent with the experiments. We find the necessary disorder to be around $5$-$10times10^{10}$cm$^{-2}$ random charged impurities in order to quantitatively explain much, but not all, of the observed MIT phenomenology as reported by two different experimental groups. Our estimate is consistent with the known disorder content in TMDs.
We describe a method to control the insulator-metal transition at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface using ultra-low-voltage electron beam lithography (ULV-EBL). Compared with previous reports that utilize conductive atomic-force-microscope lithography (c-AFM), this approach can provide comparable resolution (~10 nm) at write speeds (10 mm/s) that are up to 10,000x faster than c-AFM. The writing technique is non-destructive and the conductive state is reversible via prolonged exposure to air. Transport properties of representative devices are measured at milli-Kelvin temperatures, where superconducting behavior is observed. We also demonstrate the ability to create conducting devices on graphene/LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures. The underlying mechanism is believed to be closely related to the same mechanism regulating c-AFM-based methods.
The field-effect-induced modulation of transport properties of 2-dimensional electron gases residing at the LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ and LaGaO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ interfaces has been investigated in a back-gate configuration. Both samples with crystalline and with amorphous overlayers have been considered. We show that the naive standard scenario, in which the back electrode and the 2-dimensional electron gas are simply modeled as capacitor plates, dramatically fails in describing the observed phenomenology. Anomalies appearing after the first low-temperature application of a positive gate bias, and causing a non-volatile perturbation of sample properties, are observed in all our samples. Such anomalies are shown to drive low-carrier density samples to a persistent insulating state. Recovery of the pristine metallic state can be either obtained by a long room-temperature field annealing, or, instantaneously, by a relatively modest dose of visible-range photons. Illumination causes a sudden collapse of the electron system back to the metallic ground state, with a resistivity drop exceeding four orders of magnitude. The data are discussed and interpreted on the base of the analogy with floating-gate MOSFET devices, which sheds a new light on the effects of back-gating on oxide-based 2-dimensional electron gases. A more formal approach, allowing for a semi-quantitative estimate of the relevant surface carrier densities for different samples and under different back-gate voltages, is proposed in the Appendix.
A method for the study of the electronic transport in strongly coupled electron-phonon systems is formalized and applied to a model of polyyne chains biased through metallic Au leads. We derive a stationary non equilibrium polaronic theory in the general framework of a variational formulation. The numerical procedure we propose can be readily applied if the electron-phonon interaction in the device hamiltonian can be approximated as an effective single particle electron hamiltonian. Using this approach, we predict that finite polyyne chains should manifest an insulator-metal transition driven by the non-equilibrium charging which inhibits the Peierls instability characterizing the equilibrium state.