Effect of 1-D photonic crystals on optical transmission of VO2 is studied by depositing thin films of VO2 nanoparticles on SiO2/TiO2 distributed Bragg reflectors (DBR) in the near infrared (IR) spectrum as per earlier theoretical predictions of J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 51 375102 (2018). Monoclinic VO2 nanoparticles with tuned crystallinity were synthesized by a facile solution processing method. Moderately crystalline (MC) and highly crystalline (HC) VO2 nanostructures were obtained by varying its synthesis temperature and post growth annealing conditions. Both MC VO2 and HC VO2 films exhibit expected reduction in optical transmission in the IR region due to its structural phase transition from monoclinic (insulator) to rutile (metallic) around critical temperature of 68 °C. By combining VO2 films on a 40% transmitting DBR structure, the average optical transmission further went down to ~ 20%. Number of stacks of DBR plays a key role in such effective reduction of optical transmission in IR. When the number of stacks of DBR is further increased from 4 to 7, optical transmission of metallic VO2 films on DBR nearly vanishes in NearIR spectrum in such vanadium dioxide/1D photonic crystal based composite photonic structures. Such temperature controlled, enhanced, broad band optical response can be a promising design for VO2 nanoparticle based hybrid photonic absorbers for various smart window applications.
In this paper, a low profile dynamically tunable microwave absorber is proposed, which consists of high impedance surface (HIS) and graphene sandwich structure (GSS). We theoretically demonstrate and experimentally verify that the proposed absorber can provide a dynamically tunable reflection range from larger than -3dB to less than -30 dB (corresponding to the absorption range from 50% to 99.9%) at opera-ting frequency of 11.2GHz by external bias voltage. The entire thickness of this absorber is only 2.8mm, nearly one tenth of working wavelength. In addition, a modified equivalent circuit mod…
We present an asymmetric bifacial graphene metasurface to realize tunable and broadband coherent perfect absorption (CPA) at terahertz (THz) frequencies. The proposed design is composed of two dissimilar graphene square patch metasurfaces stacked over an ultrathin dielectric substrate. Nonlinear CPA performance without resorting to optical nonlinearities and amplification are demonstrated based on wave interference phenomena taking place along and inside this subwavelength structure. Broadband asymmetric reflection from opposite directions is obtained in the case of single wave illumination. T…
Design of Tunable Perfect Absorbers in the Mid-IR Spectrum Using Graphene-Based Multilayer Structures: Emerging Applications in Atmospheric Window Matching
For most acoustic metamaterials, once they have been fabricated, their operating frequencies and functions cannot be adjusted, which is an intrinsic barrier for development of realistic applications. The study to overcome this limit has become a significant issue in acoustic metamaterial engineering. Although with the advance of metamaterials in the past two decades, a series of methods such as electric or magnetic control have been proposed, most of them can only work in the condition of no fluid passage. Some metamaterials with large transmission losses have been proposed, but the sounds are…
Visible and infrared photons can be detected with a broadband response via the internal photoeffect. By using plasmonic nanostructures, i.e. nanoantennas, wavelength selectivity can be introduced to such detectors through geometry-dependent resonances. Also, additional functionality, like electronic responsivity switching and polarization detection have been realized. However, previous devices consisted of large arrays of nanostructures to achieve detectable photocurrents. Here we show that this concept can be scaled down to a single antenna level, resulting in detector dimensions well below t…
It is commonly believed that weak light-matter interactions in low-mobility graphene dramatically limits tunability of graphene-based optoelectronic devices, such as tunable absorbers or switches. In this paper, we develop and use a simple circuit model to understand absorption in graphene sheets. In particular, we show that light interacts weakly also with very high-mobility graphene sheets and propose systematic design means to overcome these problems. The results have allowed us to demonstrate in the terahertz band that perfect absorption with excellent electrical tunability can be achieved…
In 2016, the Global Burden of Disease reported that neurological disorders were the principal cause of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and the second leading cause of deaths. Research in the last decade has pushed neuroscience to design and implement low-cost, efficient, implantable, flexible electrodes/probes and 3D arrays for neuron stimulation and sensing. Electrical arrays used in current CMOS-based technologies can be affected by the migration of cells (such as astrocytes) that attempt to seal off the electronic devices, causing increased impedance and alternations in the electric …
We theoretically investigate photothermal heating of ultra-flexible metamaterials, which are obtained by randomly mixing TiN nanoparticles in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Due to the plasmonic properties of TiN nanoparticles, incident light is perfectly absorbed in a broadband range (300-3000 nm) to generate heat within these metamaterials. Under irradiation of an 808 nm near-infrared laser with different intensities, our predicted temperature rises as a function of time agree well with recent experimental data. For a given laser intensity, the temperature rise varies non-monotonically with con…
A galvanic displacement reaction-based, room-temperature "dip-and-dry" technique is demonstrated for fabricating selectively solar-absorbing plasmonic nanostructure-coated foils (PNFs). The technique, which allows for facile tuning of the PNFs' spectral reflectance to suit different radiative and thermal environments, yields PNFs which exhibit excellent, wide-angle solar absorptance (0.96 at 15°, to 0.97 at 35°, to 0.79 at 80°) and low hemispherical thermal emittance (0.10) without the aid of antireflection coatings. The thermal emittance is on par with those of notable selective solar absorbe…
Structural coloration of natural surfaces often originates from the change of reflected colors depending on the viewing or illumination angle. Recently, the structural coloration of nanoplasmonic structures have attracted a great deal of attention due to high compactness, robust stability and high color-tunability, as well as high sensitivity to an incident angle. Here we report complementary plasmonic structures (CPS) for transmission structural coloration by tailoring a single spectral peak depending on the incident angle of light. The CPS features self-aligned silver nanohole and nanodisk a…
Recently, a new emerging field about heavily-doped colloidal plasmonic nanocrystals (NCs) has attracted great attention due to their lower and expediently adjustable free carrier densities, lower and tunable LSPR band in the spectral range from NIR to MIR and higher optical nonlinearity. These new kinds of plasmonic materials will show huge potential and opportunities for nonlinear optical applications, such as ultrafast switching, nonlinear sensing and pulse laser generation. In this work, we demonstrate that high-quality mode-locking and Q-switching pulses at 1560 nm can both be generated by…
The key component of nanoplasmonics is metals. For a long time, gold and silver have been the metals of choice for constructing plasmonic nanodevices because of their excellent optical properties. However, these metals possess a common characteristic, i.e., their optical responses are static. The past decade has been witnessed tremendous interest in dynamic control of the optical properties of plasmonic nanostructures. To enable dynamic functionality, several approaches have been proposed and implemented. For instance, plasmonic nanostructures can be fabricated on stretchable substrates or on …
Raman scattering signal can be enhanced through localization of incident field into sub-wavelength hot-spots through plasmonic nano-structures (Surface-enhanced Raman scattering-SERS). Recently, further enhancement of SERS signal via quantum objects are proposed by [1] without increasing the hot-spot intensity (\textit{silent-enhancement}) where this suggestion prevents the modification of vibrational modes or the breakdown of molecules. The method utilizes path interference in the non-linear response of Stokes-shifted Raman modes. In this work, we extend this phenomenon to tune the spectral p…
The unique gate-voltage dependent optical properties of graphene make it a promising electrically-tunable plasmonic material. In this work, we proposed in-situ control of the polarization of nanoantennas by combining plasmonic structures with an electrostatically tunable graphene monolayer. The tunable polarizer is designed based on an asymmetric cross nanoantenna comprising two orthogonal metallic dipoles sharing the same feed gap. Graphene monolayer is deposited on a Si/SiO2 substrate, and inserted beneath the nanoantenna. Our modelling demonstrates that as the chemical potential is incremen…
