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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 109 records · Page 6
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Anomalous contrast in broadband THz near-field imaging of gold microstructures

THz scattering-type scanning near-field microscopy (s-SNOM) has become a powerful technique for measuring carrier dynamics in nanoscale materials and structures. Changes in a material’s local THz reflection or transmission can be correlated to changes in electrical conductivity. Here, we perform tip-based THz nano-imaging of subwavelength gold nanostructures and demonstrate image contrast unrelated to any spatially varying material properties. We show that the specific physical configuration of the gold structures can have a strong influence on local excitations which can obscure the sample’s true dielectric response, even in cases where the relevant structures are far outside of the spatial region probed by the AFM tip.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

Highly tunable elastic dielectric metasurface lenses

Abstract Dielectric metasurfaces are two‐dimensional structures composed of nano‐scatterers that manipulate the phase and polarization of optical waves with subwavelength spatial resolution, thus enabling ultra‐thin components for free‐space optics. While high performance devices with various functionalities, including some that are difficult to achieve using conventional optical setups have been shown, most demonstrated components have fixed parameters. Here, we demonstrate highly tunable dielectric metasurface devices based on subwavelength thick silicon nano‐posts encapsulated in a thin transparent elastic polymer. As proof of concept, we demonstrate a metasurface microlens operating at 915 nm, with focal distance tuning from 600 μm to 1400 μm (over 952 diopters change in optical power) through radial strain, while maintaining a diffraction limited focus and a focusing efficiency above 50%. The demonstrated tunable metasurface concept is highly versatile for developing ultra‐slim, multi‐functional and tunable optical devices with widespread applications ranging from consumer electronics to medical devices and optical communications. image

Kamali, Seyedeh Mahsa↗
DOE OSTI2014

Spectral and angular characteristics of dielectric resonator metasurface at optical frequencies

The capability of manipulating light at subwavelength scale has fostered the applications of flat metasurfaces in various fields. Compared to metallic structure, metasurfaces made of high permittivity low-loss dielectric resonators hold the promise of high efficiency by avoiding high conductive losses of metals at optical frequencies. This letter investigates the spectral and angular characteristics of a dielectric resonator metasurface composed of periodic sub-arrays of resonators with a linearly varying phase response. The far-field response of the metasurface can be decomposed into the response of a single grating element (sub-array) and the grating arrangement response. The analysis also reveals that coupling between resonators has a non-negligible impact on the angular response. Over a wide wavelength range, the simulated and measured angular characteristics of the metasurface provide a definite illustration of how different grating diffraction orders can be selectively suppressed or enhanced through antenna sub-array design.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Plasmonic light trapping in an ultrathin photovoltaic layer with film-coupled metamaterial structures

A film-coupled metamaterial structure is numerically investigated for enhancing the light absorption in an ultrathin photovoltaic layer of crystalline gallium arsenide (GaAs). The top subwavelength concave grating and the bottom metallic film could not only effectively trap light with the help of wave interference and magnetic resonance effects excited above the bandgap, but also practically serve as electrical contacts for photon-generated charge collection. The energy absorbed by the active layer is greatly enhanced with the help of the film-coupled metamaterial structure, resulting in significant improvement on the short-circuit current density by three times over a free-standing GaAs layer at the same thickness. The performance of the proposed light trapping structure is demonstrated to be little affected by the grating ridge width considering the geometric tolerance during fabrication. The optical absorption at oblique incidences also shows direction-insensitive behavior, which is highly desired for efficiently converting off-normal sunlight to electricity. The results would facilitate the development of next-generation ultrathin solar cells with lower cost and higher efficiency.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Voltage-gated optics and plasmonics enabled by solid-state proton pumping

Devices with locally-addressable and dynamically tunable optical properties underpin emerging technologies such as high-resolution reflective displays and dynamic holography. The optical properties of metals such as Y and Mg can be reversibly switched by hydrogen loading, and hydrogen-switched mirrors and plasmonic devices have been realized, but challenges remain to achieve electrical, localized and reversible control. Here we report a nanoscale solid-state proton switch that allows for electrical control of optical properties through electrochemical hydrogen gating. We demonstrate the generality and versatility of this approach by realizing tunability of a range of device characteristics including transmittance, interference color, and plasmonic resonance. We further discover and exploit a giant modulation of the effective refractive index of the gate dielectric. The simple gate structure permits device thickness down to ~20 nanometers, which can enable device scaling into the deep subwavelength regime, and has potential applications in addressable plasmonic devices and reconfigurable metamaterials.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2013

Acoustic subwavelength imaging of subsurface objects with acoustic resonant metalens

Early research into acoustic metamaterials has shown the possibility of achieving subwavelength near-field acoustic imaging. However, a major restriction of acoustic metamaterials is that the imaging objects must be placed in close vicinity of the devices. Here, we present an approach for acoustic imaging of subsurface objects far below the diffraction limit. An acoustic metalens made of holey-structured metamaterials is used to magnify evanescent waves, which can rebuild an image at the central plane. Without changing the physical structure of the metalens, our proposed approach can image objects located at certain distances from the input surface, which provides subsurface signatures of the objects with subwavelength spatial resolution.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2017

Structured Light-Matter Interactions Enabled By Novel Photonic Materials

The synergy of complex materials and complex light is expected to add a new dimension to the science of light and its applications [1]. The goal of this program is to investigate novel phenomena emerging at the interface of these two branches of modern optics. While metamaterials research was largely focused on relatively “simple” linearly or circularly polarized light propagation in “complex” nanostructured, carefully designed materials with properties not found in nature, many singular optics studies addressed “complex” structured light transmission in “simple” homogeneous, isotropic, nondispersive transparent media, where both spin and orbital angular momentum are independently conserved. However, if both light and medium are complex so that structured light interacts with a metamaterial whose optical materials properties can be designed at will, the spin or angular momentum can change, which leads to spin-orbit interaction and many novel optical phenomena that will be studied in the proposed project. Indeed, metamaterials enable unprecedented control over light propagation, opening new avenues for using spin and quantum optical phenomena, and design flexibility facilitating new linear and nonlinear optical properties and functionalities, including negative index of refraction, magnetism at optical frequencies, giant optical activity, subwavelength imaging, cloaking, dispersion engineering, and unique phase-matching conditions for nonlinear optical interactions. In this research program we focused on structured light-matter interactions in complex media with three particularly remarkable properties that were enabled only with the emergence of metamaterials: extreme anisotropy, extreme material parameters, and magneto-electric coupling–bi-anisotropy and chirality.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Experimental study of vibration isolation in thin-walled structural assemblies with embedded total-internal-reflection metasurfaces

The concept of total-internal-reflection elastic metasurface (TIR-MS) was recently proposed [1] and employed within flexible planar waveguides in order to create highly subwavelength sound-hard barriers impenetrable to low frequency elastic waves. The underlying physical mechanism relies on the design of engineered interfaces exhibiting extreme phase gradients such that any incoming wave at, approximately, any incidence will experience total-internal-reflection conditions. At the design frequency, the metasurface exhibits a large phase gradient such that, in accordance with the generalized Snell's law, the first critical angle is virtually always exceeded. It is worth noting that in practical realizations, the actual total reflection performance might vary depending on the angle of incidence. This dependence is due to the discrete implementation of the metasurface which results in diffraction effects. This paper presents the results of an experimental study that explores the vibration isolation performance of TIR-MS when applied to structures made of complex combinations of different elastic waveguides (e.g. bolted assemblies of beams, plates, and shells). Such system can be seen as a prototypical structure emulating mechanical assemblies of practical interest for many engineering applications. Experimental results confirm that, when the TIR-MS is embedded in the host waveguide, significant vibration isolation capabilities are achieved under quasi-omnidirectional incidence and highly subwavelength excitation conditions (i.e. the ratio of the operating wavelength to the width of the TIR-MS is approximately 5.25). Furthermore, these experimental results suggest new interesting directions to achieve vibration isolation and mechanical energy filtering for practical engineering systems.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2019

Reconfigurable Terahertz Metasurface Pure Phase Holograms

Terahertz (THz) radiation has many potential applications. However, comparing with the rapid development of THz sources and detectors, functional devices for THz modulation, especially the spatial modulation devices, are still insufficient. Here, we present a novel approach for generating arbitrary wavefronts of a THz beam is presented. By dynamically creating metasurface structures through illuminating a thin silicon wafer with femtosecond laser, which is spatially modulated, an array of reconfigurable subwavelength resonators is generated. The wavefront of the THz beam is then determined by forming spatial profiles of the Pancharatnam–Berry scattering phase by dynamically controlling the resonator orientation. Proof-of-concept experiments demonstrate that streaming holographic images and lenses of variable focal length can be realized in real time. The reconfigurable scheme demonstrated here is convenient and fast, and may lead to advances in a host of THz applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Dispersion curve regression – assisted wideband local wavenumber analysis for characterizing three-dimensional (3D) profile of hidden corrosion damage

Corrosion as common damage in civil, petrochemical, nuclear, and aerospace structures affects the integrity and safety of the structures and may lead to catastrophic failures. This paper presents dispersion curve regression-assisted local wavenumber analysis method, which can analyze the time–space wavefield containing wideband information of wave-damage interaction and further extract the structural information carried by such wavefield for characterizing hidden corrosion damage in an isotropic plate. To acquire the time–space wavefield, a noncontact scanning laser Doppler vibrometer is used. In our analysis method, the acquired time–space wavefield is firstly processed to generate a local wavenumber function. The derived wavenumber function is further analyzed with a dispersion curve regression step, which searches in a set of theoretical frequency-wavenumber dispersion curves for different plate thicknesses and identifies the optimal plate thickness whose theoretical curve best matches the frequency-wavenumber relation contained in the local wavenumber function. By this means, a 3D profile including both in plane and thickness dimensions of the structure can be constructed for corrosion visualization and quantification. The experimental study demonstrates that our method can quantify the profile of hidden uniform corrosion in metal plates in terms of its in-plane shape and size as well as its out-of-plane depth in the subwavelength scale. Moreover, compared to previous Lamb wave-based corrosion inspection methods, our technique allows for noncontact 3D characterization of hidden corrosion from a far distance to the structure. Finally, we believe this work will inspire new 3D damage quantification methods that are based on wavefield analysis as well as enable potential applications for the quantification of hidden corrosion in civil, petrochemical, nuclear, and aerospace structures.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Coupled surface plasmon–phonon polariton nanocavity arrays for enhanced mid-infrared absorption

Abstract Resonant optical cavities are essential components in mid-infrared applications. However, typical film-type cavities require multilayer stacks with a micron-thick spacer due to mid-infrared wavelengths, and their performance is limited by narrow frequency tunability and angular sensitivity. We propose and experimentally demonstrate the subwavelength-scale (≈ λ 0 /150) resonant nanocavity arrays that enhance the absorption spectrum of the device in the mid-infrared (10–12 microns) via excitation of coupled surface plasmon–phonon polaritons. The proposed metal–insulator–polar dielectric (gold–silicon–silicon carbide) structure supports a guided mode of the coupled surface polaritons in the lateral direction while vertically confining the mid-infrared wave within the 80 nm thick dielectric spacer. In particular, the subwavelength-scale (≈ λ 0 /10) gratings are imposed to form Fabry–Pérot cavity arrays displaying angle-insensitive and frequency-tunable absorption of up to 80% of the optical power in the mid-infrared. Our work should benefit diverse mid-infrared applications and novel designs of polariton-based photonic devices.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Nonlinear van der Waals Metasurfaces with Resonantly Enhanced Light Generation

Efficient nonlinear wave mixing is of paramount importance for a wide range of applications. However, weak optical nonlinearities pose significant challenges for accessing nonlinear light–matter interaction in compact systems. Here, we experimentally study second harmonic generation in deeply subwavelength 3R-MoS 2 metasurfaces (<λ/13 thick). Our measurements, supported by theoretical analysis, reveal a complex interplay and coupling between geometric resonances, optical extinction, and exciton-driven strong nonlinear susceptibility dispersion. We further demonstrate >150-fold enhancement in second harmonic signal at 740 nm mediated by the A exciton resonance. Additionally, our theoretical studies predict an enhancement of more than 10 6 in second harmonic generation in <100 nm thick structures exhibiting bound states in the continuum resonance. These findings provide insight into accessing and harnessing the unprecedented 3R-MoS 2 nonlinearities at a subwavelength scale, paving the way to ultracompact nonlinear photonic devices.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

An asymmetric emittance electron source for the GALAXIE dielectric-laser accelerator injector

The GALAXIE project is a program to develop an all-optical, very high field accelerator and undulator integrated SASE FEL system based on dielectric laser-excited structures that support >GV/m fields. These structures are very wide in one direction to allow adequate charge given beam loading considerations, but also having small (subwavelength) apertures in the narrow direction. Such small vertical dimensions yield strict restrictions on the emittance in this direction, while no such constraint exists in the wide transverse direction. However, the overall beam brightness is restricted by the performance requirements on the FEL. To meet these demands, we are studying a very high field gun with a magnetized cathode, yielding a beam with angular momentum content. This beam is then subject to a skew-quad triplet that splits the emittances; this process is reversed to give a round beam after acceleration. This symmetric emittance beam avoids gain-degrading multiple-transverse-mode operation of the FEL, which also demands that the effects of the angular momentum in the beam be mitigated. In this paper we discuss the RF design of an X-band gun to be operated at {approx}200 MV/m peak field giving a 1 pC magnetized beam with unprecedented brightness. We examine the design of the focusing and skew-quad systems, investigating the associated beam dynamics and efficacy of emittance splitting.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Scalable Nanoimprint Manufacturing of Functional Multilayer Metasurface Devices

Optical metasurfaces, consisting of subwavelength-scale meta-atom arrays, hold great promise of overcoming the fundamental limitations of conventional optics. Due to their structural complexity, metasurfaces usually require high-resolution yet slow and expensive fabrication processes. Here, using a metasurface polarimetric imaging device as an example, the photonic structures and the Nanoimprint lithography (NIL) processes are designed, creating two separate NIL molds over a patterning area of > 20 mm2 with designed Moiré alignment markers by electron-beam writing, and further subsequently integrate silicon and aluminum metasurface structures on a chip. Uniquely, the silicon and aluminum metasurfaces are fabricated by using the nanolithography and 3D pattern-transfer capabilities of NIL, respectively, achieving nanometer-scale linewidth uniformity, sub-200 nm translational overlay accuracy, and <0.017 rotational alignment error while significantly reducing fabrication complexity and surface roughness. Here, the micro-sized multilayer metasurfaces have high circular polarization extinction ratios as large as ≈20 and ≈80 in blue and red wavelengths. Further, the metasurface chip-integrated CMOS imager demonstrates high accuracy in broad-band, full Stokes parameter analysis in the visible wavelength ranges and single-shot polarimetric imaging. This novel, NIL-based, multilayered nanomanufacturing approach is applicable to the scalable production of large-area functional structures for ultra-compact optic, electronic, and quantum devices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Resonant metallic nanostructure for enhanced two-photon absorption in a thin GaAs p-i-n diode

Degenerate two-photon absorption (TPA) is investigated in a 186 nm thick gallium arsenide (GaAs) p-i-n diode embedded in a resonant metallic nanostructure. The full device consists in the GaAs layer, a gold subwavelength grating on the illuminated side, and a gold mirror on the opposite side. For TM-polarized light, the structure exhibits a resonance close to 1.47 μm, with a confined electric field in the intrinsic region, far from the metallic interfaces. A 109 times increase in photocurrent compared to a non-resonant device is obtained experimentally, while numerical simulations suggest that both gain in TPA-photocurrent and angular dependence can be further improved. For optimized grating parameters, a maximum gain of 241 is demonstrated numerically and over incidence angle range of (−30°; +30°).

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Acoustic planar hyperlens based on anisotropic density-near-zero metamaterials

Based on anisotropic density-near-zero metamaterials, we demonstrate a planar hyperlens with resolution beyond the diffraction limit in both one and two lateral dimensions. In contrast to the cylindrical hyperlens with elliptical dispersions of finite anisotropy, the proposed planar hyperlens is designed with flat near-zero dispersion that supports wave tunneling with extremely high phase velocity for infinite large transverse wave vectors. Therefore, the acoustic evanescent waves immediately concentrate into the designed oblique path till the output surface, leading to a subwavelength resolution. Prototype hyperlens is constructed with a membrane-network by means of equivalent lumped-circuit model, and the subwavelength magnifying performance for a pair of one-dimensional line objects as well as the complex two-dimensional structure is demonstrated. This method provides diverse routes to construct hyperlens operating without the limitation on imaging region in practical applications.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2012

Nanowires and nanoribbons as subwavelength optical waveguides and their use as components in photonic circuits and devices

Nanoribbons and nanowires having diameters less than the wavelength of light are used in the formation and operation of optical circuits and devices. Such nanostructures function as subwavelength optical waveguides which form a fundamental building block for optical integration. The extraordinary length, flexibility and strength of these structures enable their manipulation on surfaces, including the precise positioning and optical linking of nanoribbon/wire waveguides and other nanoribbon/wire elements to form optical networks and devices. In addition, such structures provide for waveguiding in liquids, enabling them to further be used in other applications such as optical probes and sensors.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Manipulating electromagnetic responses of metal wires at the deep subwavelength scale via both near- and far-field couplings

A hybrid coupling model containing both near- and far-field couplings is developed for radiating two-resonator structures. We demonstrate that the near- and far-field couplings make distinguished contributions to electromagnetic responses. Compared to the classical electromagnetically induced transparency configurations, the presence of far-field coupling provides more flexibility in tuning lineshapes. Planar metamaterials composed of metal wires are designed based on this model, and various electromagnetic responses are experimentally observed.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗