A Novel Plasmonic Zone Plate Lens Based on Nano-Slits with Refractive Index Modulation

Conventionally, plasmonic lenses introduce a phase delay distribution across their surfaces by modulating the dimensions of nanostructures within a metal film. However, there is very limited modulation of the phase delay due to the small dependence of the mode propagation constant on the structure dimensions. In this paper, a novel design of plasmonic zone plate lenses (PZPL) with both slit width and refractive index modulation is proposed to enable integrating more slits in a fixed lens aperture with the extended phase delay range and, therefore, greatly enhance the performance of the devices. More than three-time enhancement of the light intensity at the focus is achieved compared to the structure with only slit width modulation. Like a conventional immersion system, a PZPL embedded in a dielectric is found to have a further improved focusing performance, where light is focused down to a 0.44λ spot using a PZPL with an aperture of 12λ and a focal length of 6λ. Dispersive light-focusing behaviour is also analysed and the modulation of the focal length by colour has a potential application in stacked image sensors and multi-dimensional optical data storage.     

Plasmonic Lens Based on Rectangular Holes

A compact plasmonic lens is proposed in this paper. This plasmonic lens consists of rectangular holes etched on the silver film and arranged on one straight line and possesses the characteristics of short focus length, ultrathin thickness, and strong focus ability. The theoretical design for the plasmonic lens abides by the constructive interference theorem, and the surface plasmon polaritons excited by the holes with linearly polarized light illumination focuses effectively. The plasmonic lenses with single and double focus spots are provided, and the simulation experiment gives the powerful verification. The distinct structure feature and the excellent focusing characteristic of this plasmonic lens are benefit for its applications in optical integration.     

Plasmonic Planar Lens Based on Slanted Nanoslit Array

The novel plasmonic lenses based on slanted nanoslits have been proposed theoretically. The slanted nanoslits with different slant angles can provide unequal propagation distances for the surface plasmon polaritons excited by incident light. The phase retardation for wavefront shaping can be obtained to realize constructive interference on a preset single spot. We can actively modulate the position of the optical focus by adjusting the slits slant angles properly. The simulation results of the finite element method are used to verify our proposals.     

Multiple-Wavelength Focusing and Demultiplexing Plasmonic Lens Based on Asymmetric Nanoslit Arrays

A multiple-wavelength focusing and demultiplexing plasmonic lens based on asymmetric nanoslit arrays is designed. The nanoslit arrays are perforated in a gold film and act as metal–insulator–metal plasmonic waveguides. By manipulating the widths of the slit arrays, the plasmonic lens can concentrate two incident plane wave beams to two separated focal points corresponding to their wavelengths. The full wave simulation is performed to verify the designed lens. This work provides a way to design more compact and integrated wavelength-division multiplexing plasmonic devices for nanophotonic communication and spectral imaging.     

Magnetically Controlled Nanofocusing of a Graphene Plasmonic Lens

In this paper, we propose a method to tailor the nanofocusing of plasmons on graphene plasmonic lens, which is composed of graphene and circular dielectric gratings of magneto-optical material beneath it. With an external magnetic field parallel to graphene surface, the magneto-optical effect of substrate leads to the difference in modal indices of graphene plasmons, which also introduces an additional relative phase difference between these two plasmons during excitation and propagation. Together, these two effects enable us to tailor the position of focal points through external magnetic field, which has been described by an analytical approach based on phase matching and verified by numerical simulations. With an operation wavelength of 8500 nm and an external magnetic field from B = ?1 T to B = 1 T, a shift distance over one and a half times of plasmons wavelength for focal points or donut-shaped field profiles can be obtained under linearly or circularly polarized light. The proposed scheme has potentials in diverse applications, such as the tunable nanofocusing and particle manipulation.     

Spatial Mode Selection by the Phase Modulation of Subwavelength Plasmonic Grating

The extraordinary transmission of the subwavelength gold grating has been investigated by the rigorous coupled-wave analysis and verified by the metal–insulator–metal plasmonic waveguide method. The physical mechanisms of the extraordinary transmission are characterized as the excitation of the surface plasmon polariton modes. The subwavelength grating integrated with the distributed Bragg reflector is proposed to modulate the phase to realize spatial mode selection, which is prospected to be applied for transverse mode selection in the vertical cavity surface-emitting laser.     

A Hybrid Plasmonic Modulator Based on Graphene on Channel Plasmonic Polariton Waveguide

A hybrid plasmonic modulator based on graphene on channel plasmonic polariton waveguide was proposed to overcome the difficulty in achieving high-speed modulation on the nanometric plasmonic waveguide platform. The extinction ratio and the figure of merit of the proposed modulator were analyzed in detail, and a tradeoff between them was found due to the intrinsic loss of the channel plasmonic polariton waveguide. And an optimized hybrid plasmonic modulator with large modulation bandwidth of 0.662 THz, low power consumption of 118.7 fJ/bit, and short device length of 7.680 μm was obtained theoretically. In addition, the proposed hybrid plasmonic modulator based on graphene on channel plasmonic polariton waveguide is easy to fabricate and provides a potential solution for the high-speed plasmonic modulator.

     

Terahertz Tunable Metasurface Lens Based on Vanadium Dioxide Phase Transition

Based on the insulator-to-metal phase transition of vanadium dioxide (VO ₂), a terahertz (THz) tunable metasurface lens (TML), which consists of a THz metasurface lens and a VO ₂ film on Al ₂ O ₃ substrate, is proposed and experimentally verified. The focal intensity of the TML can be thermally controlled. The changes of the cross-polarized amplitude spectrum and the focal intensity during the heating and cooling processes are also investigated in detail. Any desired focal intensity can be obtained by adjusting the TML temperature. This TML and its approach will be of great significance for the development of the THz active devices.     

Multiband Metamaterial Absorber Design Based on Plasmonic Resonances for Solar Energy Harvesting

A new metamaterial absorber is designed and characterized numerically for the harvesting of solar energy. The design is composed of three layers in which the interaction among them gives rise to the plasmonic resonances. The main operation frequency range of the proposed structure is chosen to be the visible regime. However, the design is also analyzed for the infrared and ultraviolet regimes. In order to characterize the absorber, some parametric studies with respect to the dimensions of the structure are carried out. According to the results, it is found that the proposed metamaterial absorber has 98.2 % absorption capability at 445.85 THz and 99.4 % absorption capability between 624 and 658.3 THz. Moreover, the polarization dependency of the structure is examined and it is found that the design operates well as a perfect absorber with polarization independency for the studied frequency range. As a result, the proposed metamaterial absorber can be used for solar energy harvesting as it provides multiple perfect absorption bands in the visible regime.     

Possible Plasmonic Acceleration of LED Modulation for Li-Fi Applications

Plasmonics - Emerging LED-based wireless visible light communication (Li-Fi) needs faster LED response to secure desirable modulation rates. Decay rate of an emitter can be enhanced by plasmonics,...     

Investigation of Resonance Modulation of a Single Rhombic Plasmonic Nanoparticle

Optical extinction resonant properties of the silver rhombic plasmonic nanoparticles in visible regime were investigated by means of finite difference time domain method algorithm-based computational numerical calculation. Considering aspect ratio (a/b) of the x- and y-axes of the rhombic particles, the polarization in different angles of the incident light, and the index of the surrounding medium, we studied the extinction properties of a single rhombus. The simulation results show that there is only one clear resonance peak in the visible regime, and the corresponding plasmon mode is a dipolar plasmon mode. Along the direction of the light polarization, with the increase of the aspect ratio (a/b), red shift of the resonant peak occurs and the extinction efficiency increases accordingly. With the polarization angle varying from 0° to 90°, the resonance peaks show a small blue shift and the corresponding extinction efficiency varies slightly consequently. The tailoring ability of the resonance frequency is shown to be improved due to a unique interaction of local geometry with surface charge distributions.     

Design Method of a Broadband Wide-Angle Plasmonic Absorber in the Visible Range

A new design method of a broadband wide-angle metal-dielectric-metal plasmonic absorber is presented based on the cavity mode theory. The broadband absorption is implemented by filling a unit cell with multi-size square metal patches resonant at adjacent wavelengths, with the widths of the patches and thickness of the dielectric layer optimized with the presented method. A broadband plasmonic absorber working in the visible range is designed, the absorption of which is insensitive to the azimuth angle of incident field and keeps over 0.7 at incident angle up to 60° for p polarization and above 0.6 at up to 40° for s polarization.     

A Laser Structure Based on Metal-Dielectric-Metal Plasmonic Nanocavity

A subwavelength plasmonic laser structure based on a metal-dielectric-metal nanocavity is proposed and numerically simulated by using the finite difference time domain method with perfectly matched layer absorbing boundary condition. The nanocavity model and gain analysis are respectively given. The simulation results show that the losses within the nanocavity (including surface plasmon losses) can be compensated by the gain material and the threshold gain of the laser is about 1.5 × 10³ cm⁻¹ with the peak wavelength around 1,550 nm. The new device would be an important step toward a fully integrated surface plasmon circuits.     

Polarization Effect on Superfocusing of a Plasmonic Lens Structured with Radialized and Chirped Elliptical Nanopinholes

Tuning effect of different polarization states was presented in this paper. It can be realized by a plasmonic lens constructed with elliptical pinholes ranging from submicron to nanoscales distributed in variant period along radial direction. Propagation properties of the lens illuminated under four different polarization states: linear, elliptical, radial, and cylindrical vector beam, were calculated and analyzed combining with finite-difference time-domain algorithm. Different focusing performances of the lens were illustrated while the polarized light passes through the pinholes. Our calculation results demonstrate that polarization effect of the elliptical pinholes-based plasmonic lens can generate high transmission intensity and sharp focusing for our proposed specific structures. Beam focal region, position, and transmission intensity distribution can be tailored by the four polarization states.     

光通过散射介质聚焦的空间位相逐个单元调节方法

本研究在分析现有散射介质聚焦方法的基础上,提出一种利用单元裂解进行波前位相调制,将经过强散射介质的散射光聚焦的快速收敛方法.文中详细地描述了这一新方法的原理,并同现有逐个单元调节方法进行运行对比.单元裂解方法的物理本质,即为实现空间光调制器的调制各单元光波之间同位相干涉.本方法具有更高的信噪比,并且聚焦收敛的速度快.这一新方法为进一步开展生物成像的光学理论研究提供了新思路.     

Numerical Study of a Nonplanar Two-Stage Surface Plasmonic Lens Illuminated by a Radially Polarized Beam

We design and fabricate a nonplanar two-stage surface plasmonic lens composed of concentric circular slits for exciting propagating surface plasmonic wave and a center-positioned cone-like nanoparticle for generating localized surface plasmonic waves. The numerical investigation based on the finite difference in time domain method is performed. It is found that, when a radially polarized beam illumination is applied, a highly confined electric field with full width half maximum of as small as 6 nm and the transmission enhancement factor of six orders higher than the incident beam is achievable. The optimization design is conducted through comparison of different conic angles and different materials of the cone-like nanoparticles.     

A Sub-wavelength Electro-optic Switch Based on Plasmonic T-Shaped Waveguide

A sub-wavelength electro-optic switch based on plasmonic T-shaped waveguide has been proposed and numerically investigated. The finite-difference time-domain simulation results reveal that the switch based on T-shaped waveguide with two U-shaped grooves can realize the function of switching single wavelength from one port to the other by an external voltage. The U-shaped structure is composed of two teeth filled with highly nonlinear organic EO material and one groove filled with 6H-SiC connecting the two teeth. The switch wavelength can be chosen by adjusting both lengths of the left and right teeth, and the switch voltage is 3.35 V for the wavelength of λ = 730 nm with the insertion loss around −2.6 dB and the extinction ratio around −20 dB at port 2.     

A Controller Design Method Based on a Neural Network for an Outdoor Mobile Robot

A wheeled mobile mechanism with a passive and/or active linkage mechanism for travel in rough terrain is developed and evaluated. In our previous research, we developed a switching controller system for wheeled mobile robots in rough terrain. This system consists of two sub-systems: an environment recognition system using a self-organizing map and an adjusted control system using a neural network. In this paper, we propose a new controller design method based on a neural network. The proposed method involves three kinds of controllers: an elementary controller, adjusted controllers, and simplified controllers. In the experiments, our proposed method results in less oscillatory motion in rough terrain and performs better than a well tuned PID controller does.     

Centrally Symmetric Focusing of Surface Plasmon Polaritons with a Rectangular Holes Arrayed Plasmonic Lens

Plasmonics - Nano rectangular holes etched in a gold thin film are optimized and arrayed to form a plasmonic lens. We demonstrate both theoretically and numerically that the proposed plasmonic lens...     

Circular Phase Response-Based Analysis for Swapped Multilayer Metallo-Dielectric Plasmonic Structures

In this paper, two types of nanoplasmonic structures, namely multilayer metallo-dielectric and multilayer-swapped metallo-dielectric structures have been analyzed in context of phase jumps and related phenomena due to the positional swap in the metallo-dielectric block. Phase, reflectivity, and field enhancement plots are also discussed in the angular and wavelength regime. Detailed analysis using circular phase response along with the angled histogram of the phase for both structures provides significant understanding of this swapping phenomenon. Parametric analysis of the metallo-dielectric block has also been demonstrated. Figure of merit defined in complex plane also gives some insight into the performance of the structures.