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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 865 records · Page 48
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2017

Broadband polarization conversion with anisotropic plasmonic metasurfaces

Metasurfaces offer exciting opportunities that enable precise control of light propagation, optical intensity, phase and polarization. Plasmonic metasurface based quarter-wave plates have been recently studied to realize the conversion between linear polarization and circular polarization. However, it is still quite challenging to directly measure the birefringent phase retardation introduced by metasurface wave plates with a reliable technique. Here, we report a high-performance broadband metasurface quarter-wave plate made of anisotropic T-shaped plasmonic antennas in near-infrared wavelength range, where the achromatic nearly 90° transmitted phase retardation through the metasurface is precisely characterized with an optical vortex based interferometric approach. Based on the measured transmission amplitude and phase of two orthogonal linear polarization components, nearly unit degree of linear polarization is extracted from the Stokes parameters, indicating excellent broadband polarization conversion between linearly and circularly polarized light through the metasurface. Our results will be an important step forward in the advancement of integrated metasurface devices for polarization conversion and beam manipulation, structured light control, as well as new spectroscopic and interferometric techniques for metasurface characterization.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2015

Super-resolution of fluorescence-free plasmonic nanoparticles using enhanced dark-field illumination based on wavelength-modulation

Super-resolution imaging of fluorescence-free plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) was achieved using enhanced dark-field (EDF) illumination based on wavelength-modulation. Indistinguishable adjacent EDF images of 103-nm gold nanoparticles (GNPs), 40-nm gold nanorods (GNRs), and 80-nm silver nanoparticles (SNPs) were modulated at their wavelengths of specific localized surface plasmon scattering. The coordinates (x, y) of each NP were resolved by fitting their point spread functions with a two-dimensional Gaussian. The measured localization precisions of GNPs, GNRs, and SNPs were 2.5 nm, 5.0 nm, and 2.9 nm, respectively. From the resolved coordinates of NPs and the corresponding localization precisions, super-resolution images were reconstructed. Depending on the spontaneous polarization of GNR scattering, the orientation angle of GNRs in two-dimensions was resolved and provided more elaborate localization information. This novel fluorescence-free super-resolution method was applied to live HeLa cells to resolve NPs and provided remarkable subdiffraction limit images.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Control of plasmonic nanoantennas by reversible metal-insulator transition

We demonstrate dynamic reversible switching of VO 2 insulator-to-metal transition (IMT) locally on the scale of 15 nm or less and control of nanoantennas, observed for the first time in the near-field. Using polarization-selective near-field imaging techniques, we simultaneously monitor the IMT in VO 2 and the change of plasmons on gold infrared nanoantennas. Structured nanodomains of the metallic VO 2 locally and reversibly transform infrared plasmonic dipole nanoantennas to monopole nanoantennas. Fundamentally, the IMT in VO 2 can be triggered on femtosecond timescale to allow ultrafast nanoscale control of optical phenomena. In conclusion, these unique features open up promising novel applications in active nanophotonics.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2017

Photons, phonons, and plasmons with orbital angular momentum in plasmas

Exact eigen modes with orbital angular momentum (OAM) in the complex media of unmagnetized homogeneous plasmas are studied. Three exact eigen modes with OAM are derived, i.e., photons, phonons, and plasmons. The OAM of different plasma components are closely related to the charge polarities. For photons, the OAM of electrons and ions are of the same magnitude but opposite direction, and the total OAM is carried by the field. For the phonons and plasmons, their OAM are carried by the electrons and ions. Lastly, the OAM modes in plasmas and their characteristics can be explored for potential applications in plasma physics and accelerator physics.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2018

Anisotropic ultraviolet-plasmon dispersion in black phosphorus

Via momentum-resolved electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) coupled with scanning transmission electron microscopy, we have studied the dispersion relation of interband plasmonic modes in the ultraviolet in black phosphorus. We find that the dispersion of the interband plasmons is anisotropic. Experimental results are reproduced by density functional theory, by taking into account both the anisotropy of the single-particle response function, arising from the anisotropic band structure, and the damping. Moreover, our theoretical model also indicates the presence of low-energy excitations in the near-infrared that are selectively active in the armchair direction, whose existence has been experimentally validated by high-resolution EELS (HREELS) in reflection mode.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Solvent-induced local environment effect in plasmonic catalysis

Solvents are known to affect the local surface plasmon resonance of metal nanoparticles; however, how solvents can be used to manipulate the interfacial charge and energy transfer in plasmonic catalysis remains to be explored.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2013

Ultra-thin titanium nanolayers for plasmon-assisted enhancement of bioluminescence of chloroplast in biological light emitting devices

Ultra-thin titanium films were deposited via ultra-high vacuum ion beam sputter deposition. Since the asymmetric electric field of the metal foil plane matches the B-band absorption of chlorophyll a, the ultra-thin titanium nanolayers were able to generate surface plasmon resonance, thus enhancing the photoluminescence of chlorophyll a. Because the density of the states of plasmon resonance increases, the enhancement of photoluminescence also rises. Due to the biocompatibility and inexpensiveness of titanium, it can be utilized to enhance the bioluminescence of chloroplast in biological light emitting devices, bio-laser, and biophotonics.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Plasmonic off-axis unidirectional beaming of quantum-well luminescence

Plasmonic off-axis unidirectional beaming of luminescence is demonstrated using nitride semiconductor quantum wells. The underlying mechanism involves the near-field excitation of surface plasmon polaritons on an ultrathin metal film, which are then diffractively scattered by an adjacent periodic array of asymmetric metallic nanoparticles. By tailoring the nanoparticles shape, we show that forward scattering can be suppressed in favor of backward diffraction (or vice versa), thereby enabling unidirectional beaming at geometrically tunable oblique angles. These nanostructures can be used to control the output light directionality of arbitrary planar luminescent devices, with a spatial resolution that would be unattainable with bulk optics.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Surface plasmon coupled emission studies on engineered thin film hybrids of nano α−Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} on silver

We report the first time engineering and fabrication of a novel thin film hybrid of nano α-alumina doped in a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix along with rhodamine b (Rh.B) on a silver thin film. Silver films of 50 nm thickness on glass slides were fabricated by thermal evaporation. Nano α-alumina was synthesized through the combustion route and characterized by XRD. The α-alumina was dispersed in the PVA-Rh.B matrix by tip sonication. The resultant solution was spin coated on the Ag thin film at 3000 rpm to generate an overcoat of ∼30 nm. We have designed and constructed an opto-mechanical setup for performing the SPCE studies. Excitation with a 532 nm continuous laser, led to the coupling of the energy of Rh.B emission to the surface plasmon modes of silver. The emission @ 580 nm was recorded using an Ocean Optics(copyright, serif) fiber optic spectrometer. Calculation of the ratio of signal intensity between the directional SPCE and isotropic fluorescence gives us the factor of signal enhancements which SPCE offers. We report an '8 fold' signal enhancement attributed to SPCE arising from the metal oxide doped thin film hybrid. We observed only a '5 fold' signal enhancement in the case of a thin film hybrid without α-alumina. The emission was also 92% P-polarized which is in coherence with the theory of SPCE. The greater degree of signal enhancement observed in the α-alumina doped thin film substrate can be attributed to the surface roughness which alumina offers to silver, which along with the porous nature of alumina enables a greater degree of adsorption of Rh.B which results in a higher emission intensity. Computational modeling was also performed, based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) calculations to provide theoretical background to observed experimental data. The α-alumina thin film hybrid can be extended as an economical sensing platform towards the high sensitive detection of analytes.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Low-power all-optical tunable plasmonic-mode coupling in nonlinear metamaterials

All-optical tunable plasmonic-mode coupling is realized in a nonlinear photonic metamaterial consisting of periodic arrays of gold asymmetrically split ring resonators, covered with a poly[(methyl methacrylate)-co-(disperse red 13 acrylate)] azobenzene polymer layer. The third-order optical nonlinearity of the azobenzene polymer is enormously enhanced by using resonant excitation. Under excitation with a 17-kW/cm{sup 2}, 532-nm pump light, plasmonic modes shift by 51 nm and the mode interval is enlarged by 30 nm. Compared with previous reports, the threshold pump intensity is reduced by five orders of magnitude, while extremely large tunability is maintained.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Loss and thermal noise in plasmonic waveguides

Rytov's theory of thermally generated radiation is used to find the noise in two-dimensional passive guides based on an arbitrary distribution of lossy isotropic dielectric. To simplify calculations, the Maxwell curl equations are approximated using difference equations that also permit a transmission-line analogy, and material losses are assumed to be low enough for modal losses to be estimated using perturbation theory. It is shown that an effective medium representation of each mode is valid for both loss and noise and, hence, that a one-dimensional model can be used to estimate the best achievable noise factor when a given mode is used in a communications link. This model only requires knowledge of the real and imaginary parts of the modal dielectric constant. The former can be found by solving the lossless eigenvalue problem, while the latter can be estimated using perturbation theory. Because of their high loss, the theory is most relevant to plasmonic waveguides, and its application is demonstrated using single interface, slab, and slot guide examples. The best noise performance is offered by the long-range plasmon supported by the slab guide.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

The properties of the extraordinary mode and surface plasmon modes in the three-dimensional magnetized plasma photonic crystals based on the magneto-optical Voigt effects

In this paper, the properties of the extraordinary mode and surface plasmon modes in the three-dimensional (3D) magnetized plasma photonic crystals (MPPCs) with face-centered-cubic lattices that are composed of the core tellurium (Te) spheres with surrounded by the homogeneous magnetized plasma shells inserted in the air, are theoretically investigated in detail by the plane wave expansion method, as the magneto-optical Voigt effects of magnetized plasma are considered (the incidence electromagnetic wave vector is perpendicular to the external magnetic field at any time). The optical switching or wavelength division multiplexer can be realized by the proposed 3D MPPCs. Our analyses demonstrate that the complete photonic band gaps (PBGs) and two flatbands regions for the extraordinary mode can be observed obviously. PBGs can be tuned by the radius of core Te sphere, the plasma density and the external magnetic field. The flatbands regions are determined by the existence of surface plasmon modes. Numerical simulations also show that if the thickness of magnetized plasma shell is larger than a threshold value, the band structures of the extraordinary mode will be similar to those obtained from the same structure containing the pure magnetized plasma spheres. In this case, the band structures also will not be affected by the inserted core spheres. It is also provided that the upper edges of two flatbands regions will not depend on the topology of lattice. However, the frequencies of lower edges of two flatbands regions will be convergent to the different constants for different lattices, as the thickness of magnetized plasma shell is close to zero.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Plasmonic gold nanoparticles modified titania nanotubes for antibacterial application

Close-packed TiO{sub 2} nanotube arrays are prepared on metallic Ti surface by electrochemical anodization. Subsequently, by magnetron sputtering, Au nanoparticles are coated onto the top sidewall and tube inwall. The Au@TiO{sub 2} systems can effectively kill Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli in darkness due to the existence of Au nanoparticles. On the basis of classical optical theories, the antibacterial mechanism is proposed from the perspective of localized surface plasmon resonance. Respiratory electrons of bacterial membrane transfer to Au nanoparticles and then to TiO{sub 2}, which makes bacteria steadily lose electrons until death. This work provides insights for the better understanding and designing of noble metal nanoparticles-based plasmonic heterostructures for antibacterial application.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Long-range hybrid ridge and trench plasmonic waveguides

We report a class of long-range hybrid plasmon polariton waveguides capable of simultaneously achieving low propagation loss and tight field localization at telecommunication wavelength. The symmetric (quasi-symmetric) hybrid configurations featuring high-refractive-index-contrast near the non-uniform metallic nanostructures enable significantly improved optical performance over conventional hybrid waveguides, exhibiting considerably longer propagation distances and dramatically enhanced figure of merits for similar degrees of confinement. Compared to their traditional long-range plasmonic counterparts, the proposed hybrid waveguides put much less stringent requirements on index-matching conditions, demonstrating nice performance under a wide range of physical dimensions and robust characteristics against certain fabrication imperfections. Studies concerning crosstalk between adjacent identical waveguides further reveal their potential for photonic integrations. In addition, alternative configurations with comparable guiding properties to the structures in our case studies are also proposed, which can potentially serve as attractive prototypes for numerous high-performance nanophotonic components.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Triple plasmon resonance of bimetal nanoshell

In this paper, light absorption spectra properties of a bimetal multilayer nanoshell based on quasi-static approach are investigated. Comparing with silver-dielectric-silver and silver-dielectric-gold nanoshells, gold-dielectric-silver nanoshells have three intense and separated plasmon peaks which are more suitable for multiplex biosensing. Calculations show that relatively small thickness of outer silver shell and large dielectric constant of middle dielectric layer of gold-dielectric-silver nanoshell are suitable to obtain the triple plasmon resonance.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Numerical investigation of optical Tamm states in two-dimensional hybrid plasmonic-photonic crystal nanobeams

Optical Tamm states (OTSs) in analogy with its electronic counterpart confined at the surface of crystals are optical surface modes at the interfaces between uniform metallic films and distributed Bragg reflectors. In this paper, OTSs are numerically investigated in two-dimensional hybrid plasmonic-photonic crystal nanobeams (HPPCN), which are constructed by inserting a metallic nanoparticle into a photonic crystal nanobeam formed by periodically etching square air holes into dielectric waveguides. The evidences of OTSs can be verified by transmission spectra and the field distribution at resonant frequency. Similar to OTSs in one-dimensional multilayer structures OTSs in HPPCN can be excited by both TE and TM polarization. The physical origin of OTSs in HPPCN is due to the combined contribution of strong reflection imposed by the photonic band gap (PBG) of the photonic crystal (PC) nanobeam and strong backward scattering exerted by the nanoparticle. For TE, incidence OTSs can be obtained at the frequency near the center of the photonic band gap. The transmissivity and the resonant frequency can be finely tuned by the dimension of nanoparticles. While for TM incidence OTSs are observed for relatively larger metallic nanoparticles compared with TE polarization. The differences between TE and TM polarization can be explained by two reasons. For one reason stronger backward scattering of nanoparticles for TE polarization can be achieved by the excitation of localized surface plasmon polariton of nanoparticles. This assumption has been proved by examining the scattering, absorption, and extinction cross section of the metallic nanoparticle. The other can be attributed to the deep and wide PBG available for TE polarization with less number of air holes compared with TM polarization. Our results show great promise in extending the application scope of OTSs from one-dimensional structures to practical integrated photonic devices and circuits.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Coupling of Er light emissions to plasmon modes on In{sub 2}O{sub 3}: Sn nanoparticle sheets in the near-infrared range

Near-infrared Er photoluminescence (PL) is markedly modified using a plasmonic In{sub 2}O{sub 3}: Sn nanoparticle (NP) sheet. Modeling and optical measurements reveal the presence of different electric fields (E-field) in the NP sheet. The local E-field excited at the interface between the NP sheet and Er-emitting layer of ZnO contributes significantly towards the spectral modifications of Er PL due to matching with the photon energy of Er PL. We also determine the critical temperature for Er PL modifications, which is related to the energy transfer efficiency between Er transition dipoles in ZnO and the plasmon modes on the NP sheet.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗