We report on orientational, optical nonlinearity of nematic liquid crystals (NLCs), observed when integrated with THz metallic metamaterial (MM) resonators. Our findings show that the bulk NLCs orientation breaks down close to the MM-NLC interface. The THz MMs exhibit extreme electric field ‘hotspots’, when on resonance, that strongly alter the NLCs local orientation. We model numerically the distribution of the refractive index of NLCs molecules close to the MM interface which demonstrates that the resonantly induced electric fields of the MMs are able to drive the birefringence of the NLC device. We experimentally verified our theoretical predictions with THz-Time Domain Spectroscopy (THz-TDS) in the 0.1-1.4 THz range and showed that, even a relatively thin layer of NLCs (20μm) integrated with MMs, can manipulate long wavelengths (such as 300 μm), beyond the limitations imposed by the NLC anisotropy.
Specular optical activity manifests itself as the rotation of light polarization when reflecting from chiral materials and diffusive scattering from chiral liquids. The effect is generally extremely weak, especially in the visible domain. Here we demonstrate strong specular optical activity at the wavelength of 660nm in achiral non-magnetic metasurfaces featuring nano-scale periodic slit patterns milled into a gold film. We reveal through experiment and simulations that the metasurfaces with reduced structural symmetry are able to induce directionally dependent polarization rotation with magnitude of ~1°, which mimics longitudinal MOKE in magnetized films.
Compact Optical components sensitive to incident wave-vector direction are essential in image-processing, wavefront-manipulation, and metrology such as LIDAR. Here we demonstrate a new class of metasurfaces which exhibit optical spectral features strongly correlated with incident illumination angle. The spectra of such metasurfaces feature sharp transmission dips centred around 800 nm when illuminated at oblique incidence, where the strength of the dip increases as incident angle increases remaining tightly confined within a 100 nm band. The metasurfaces are capable of accepting large incident angles (>30°) without the appearance of higher-order diffraction modes, while displaying dramatic transmission decreases (~80% reduction).
We report on a discovery that homogeneous metallic non-diffracting metasurfaces of a certain type allow robust speckle-free discrimination between different degrees of the spatial coherence of light. The effect has no direct analogue in natural materials and has been previously unseen in metamaterials (and metasurfaces in particular). It results in a qualitative change of the optical response of metasurfaces, whereby their transmission (and reflection) spectra acquires different spectral components, depending on whether the nano-structures are illuminated with spatially coherent or incoherent light. This effect is robust and exceptionally strong (e.g., the resulting absolute change in transmission exceeds 50%), which makes it immediately suitable for practical applications, such as optical metrology, imaging and communications. Among the metasurfaces that have been found to exhibit the new effect are planar metamaterials featuring a continuous periodic zigzag pattern. The reported samples were designed to operate in the near-IR part of the spectrum and composed of arrays of continuous zigzag nano-wires, as well as their inversion, i.e., continuous zigzag nano-slits, covering the area of ~20x20mkm2. The measured data suggest that these apparently trivial metasurfaces, while non-diffracting, can indeed behave differently under spatially incoherent and coherent illumination. The systematic experimental investigation and rigorous theoretical analysis of this phenomenon (the results of which will be presented at the conference) reveal that the effect is underpinned by strongly non-local response of the metasurfaces. Its mechanism involves interference of light scattered via non-dispersive delocalised plasmon modes uniquely supported by the fabric of the metasurfaces.
Split ring resonator (SRR) has attracted wide attentions since the discovery of negative refraction in 2002. Here, we
designed and fabricated vertical SRR (VSRR) arrays and toroidal metamolecule by using double exposure e-beam
lithography with precise alignment technique, and their resonance behaviors are subsequently studied in optical region.
The fundamental resonance properties of VSRR are studied as well as the plasmon coupling in a VSRR dimer structure
by changing the gap distance between SRRs. In addition, we proposed a three-dimensional toroidal structure composed a
VSRR with a dumbbell structure that supported a toroidal resonance under normal incidence with broadband working
frequency. Such toroidal metamaterial confines effectively the electric as well as magnetic energy paving a way for
promising applications in the field of plasmonics, such as integrated 3D plasmonic metamaterials, plasmonic biosensor
and lasing spaser.
Metamaterials are composites consisting of artificial
meta-atoms/metamolecules with typical sizes less than the
wavelength of operation. One of the key properties that makes metamaterials distinctly different form the natural media is
a very strong magnetic response that can be engineered in the visible and infra-red part of the spectrum.
In this work we summarize our multipole expansion approach that can be used to describe analytically optical properties
of metamaterials composed of, in particular, the split-ring and
cut-wire resonators. An important feature of our
formalism is the possibility of describing nonlinear response of a metamaterial, such as second harmonic generation,
which arises due to induced high-order multipoles.
Our model has recently been extended to the case of hybrid metamaterials composed of plasmonic nano-resonators
coupled with quantum elements (such as quantum dots, carbon nano tubes etc). It has also been shown that apart from
metamaterials various other physical systems can be successfully modelled within framework of the developed approach.
For example, transient dynamics and steady-state regime of a
nano-laser, as well as its stochastic properties (e.g.
linewidth of generation) have been described using this model.
Some basic properties of nonradiating systems are considered. A simple connection is established between the existence of residual electromagnetic potentials and the current density spectrum of the system. The properties of specific configurations based on toroidal and supertoroidal currents are modeled with the finite-difference time-domain method. Possible applications are discussed. A design of a new type of nonradiating system, based on a left-handed metamaterial is proposed and the system performance is modeled numerically.
We have found recently that Gallium, confined at an interface with silica, responds dramatically to low power optical excitation when held at temperatures close to its melting point (29.8oC). Intensities of just a few kW/cm2 can reversibly modulate the intensity (by up to 40%) and phase (by as much as several degrees) of reflected light as the result of a light-induced structural transition occurring in a layer of gallium of only a few nm thick. Here, we report that this concept - of achieving a nonlinearity via a light-induced transformation in a confined solid at a temperature close to a phase transition temperature - can also be applied to gallium nanoparticles. We present the transient all-optical switching characteristics of gallium nanoparticle films comprising particles, typically 80 nm in diameter, which were formed directly on the ends of optical fibers using a new light-assisted self-assembly technique. We also report, for the first time, that this light-induced structural transition in gallium confined at an interface with silica underlies a new mechanism for photoconductivity. In our opinion, the exploitation of the light-induced phase transition in gallium may be a means of enabling the development of nanoscale photonic devices.
It is shown that a high concentration of laser-induced point defects (interstitials, vacancies), interacting with each other through deformation field, phase transition with formation of nanometer periodic Defect-Deformational- structure occurs, accompanied by appearance of modulation of the surface relief. The shape, period and amplitude of relief modulation are determined as functions of defect concentration. It is shown that the local field factor at metal surface undergoes resonance increase (102 times) under scanning of the temperature in vicinity of roughening transition point lying just below the melting point.
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