arXiv subjects

Zhaogang Dong

Publications and source records attributed to Zhaogang Dong.

27 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Miniaturizing Color-Sensitive Photodetectors via Hybrid Nanoantennas towards Sub-micron Dimensions

Digital camera sensors utilize color filters on photodiodes to achieve color selectivity. As color filters and photosensitive silicon layers are separate elements, these sensors suffer from optical cross-talk, which sets limits to the minimum pixel size. In this paper, we report hybrid silicon-aluminum nanostructures in the extreme limit of zero distance between color filters and sensors. This design could essentially achieve sub micron pixel dimensions and minimize the optical cross-talk originated from tilt illuminations. The designed hybrid silicon-aluminum nanostructure has dual functionalities. Crucially, it supports a hybrid Mie-plasmon resonance of magnetic dipole to achieve the color-selective light absorption, generating electron hole pairs. Simultaneously, the silicon-aluminum interface forms a Schottky barrier for charge separation and photodetection. This design could potentially replace the traditional dye based filters for camera sensors at ultra-high pixel densities with advanced functionalities in sensing polarization and directionality, as well as UV selectivity via interband plasmons of silicon.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

High-order Photonic Cavity Modes Enabled 3D Structural Color

It remains a challenge to directly print three-dimensional arbitrary shapes that exhibit structural colors at the micrometer scale. Woodpile photonic crystals (WPCs) fabricated via two-photon lithography (TPL) are promising as building blocks to produce 3D geometries that generate structural colors due to their ability to exhibit either omnidirectional or anisotropic photonic stopbands. However, existing approaches have focused on achieving structural colors when illuminating WPCs from the top, which necessitates print resolutions beyond the limit of commercial TPL and/or post-processing techniques. Here, we devised a new strategy to support high-order photonic cavity modes upon side-illumination on WPCs that surprisingly generate large reflectance peaks in the visible spectrum. Based on that, we demonstrate one-step printing of 3D photonic structural colors without requiring post-processing or subwavelength features. Vivid colors with reflectance peaks exhibiting a full width at half maximum of ~25 nm, a maximum reflectance of 50%, gamut of ~85% of sRGB, and large viewing angles, were achieved. In addition, we also demonstrated voxel-level manipulation and control of colors in arbitrary-shaped 3D objects constituted with WPCs as unit cells, which has great potential for applications in dynamic color displays, colorimetric sensing, anti-counterfeiting, and light-matter interaction platforms.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2022

Recent Advances in Tunable Metasurfaces: Materials, Design and Applications

Metasurfaces, a two-dimensional (2D) form of metamaterials constituted by planar meta-atoms, exhibit exotic abilities to freely tailor electromagnetic (EM) waves. Over the past decade, tunable metasurfaces have come to the frontier in the field of nanophotonics, with tremendous effort focused on developing and integrating various active materials into metasurfaces. As a result, tunable/reconfigurable metasurfaces with multi-functionalities triggered by various external stimuli have been successfully demonstrated, openings a new avenue to dynamically manipulate and control EM waves for photonic applications in demand. In this review, we first brief the progress of tunable metasurfaces development in the last decade and highlight representative works from the perspectives of active materials development, design methodologies and application-driven exploration. Then, we elaborate on the active tuning mechanisms and relevant active materials. Next, we discuss recent achievements in theory as well as machine learning (ML) assisted design methodologies to sustain the development of this field. After that, we summarize and describe typical application areas of the tunable metasurfaces. We conclude this review by analyzing existing challenges and presenting our perspectives on future directions and opportunities in this vibrant and fast-developing field.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Controlling plexcitonic strong coupling via multidimensional hotspot nanoengineering

Plexcitonic strong coupling has ushered in an era of room-temperature quantum electrodynamics that is achievable at the nanoscale, with potential applications ranging from high-precision single-molecule spectroscopy to quantum technologies functional under ambient conditions. Realizing these applications on an industrial scale requires scalable and mass-producible plasmonic cavities that provide ease of access and control for quantum emitters. Via a rational selection of substrates and the canonical gold bowtie nanoantenna, we propose a novel design strategy for multidimensional engineering of nanocavity antenna-mode hotspots, which facilitates their elevation to the top of the nanobowtie gap and provides a field enhancement of ~500 fold (a 1.6-fold increase compared to a conventional nanobowtie-on-glass cavity at the bottom of the nanobowtie gap). We discuss the formation mechanism for such antenna modes using different material substrates from the perspective of charge carrier motion, and analyze their sensitivity to the geometrical parameters of the device. The advantages of these antenna modes, particularly in view of their dominantly in-plane polarized near-fields, are further elaborated in a spatiotemporal study of plexcitonic strong coupling involving single emitters and layered ensembles thereof, which reveals ultrafast quantum dynamics dependent on both the substrate and nanobowtie geometry, as well as the potential for applications related to 2D materials whose excitonic dipoles are typically oriented in-plane. The conceptual discovery of this substrate-enabled antenna-mode nanoengineering could readily be extended to tailor hotspots in other plasmonic platforms, and we anticipate that this work could inspire a wide range of novel research directions from photoluminescence spectroscopy and sensing to the design of quantum logic gates and systems for long-range energy transfer.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Tunable Mie Resonances in the Visible Spectrum

Dielectric optical nanoantennas play an important role in color displays, metasurface holograms, and wavefront shaping applications. They usually exploit Mie resonances as supported on nanostructures with high refractive index, such as Si and TiO2. However, these resonances normally cannot be tuned. Although phase change materials, such as the germanium-antimony-tellurium alloys and post transition metal oxides, such as ITO, have been used to tune optical antennas in the near infrared spectrum, tunable dielectric antennae in the visible spectrum remain to be demonstrated. In this paper, we designed and experimentally demonstrated tunable dielectric nanoantenna arrays with Mie resonances in the visible spectrum, exploiting phase transitions in wide-bandgap Sb2S3 nano-resonators. In the amorphous state, Mie resonances in these Sb2S3 nanostructures give rise to a strong structural color in reflection mode. Thermal annealing induced crystallization and laser induced amorphization of the Sb2S3 resonators allow the color to be tuned reversibly. We believe these tunable Sb2S3 nanoantennae arrays will enable a wide variety of tunable nanophotonic applications, such as high-resolution color displays, holographic displays, and miniature LiDAR systems.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Schrodinger's Red Pixel by Quasi Bound-State-In-Continuum

While structural colors are ubiquitous in nature, saturated reds are mysteriously absent. Hence, a longstanding problem is in fabricating nanostructured surfaces that exhibit reflectance approaching the theoretical limit. This limit is termed the Schrodinger red and demands sharp spectral transitions from "stopband" to a high reflectance "passband" with total suppression of higher-order resonances at blue and green wavelengths. Current approaches based on metallic or dielectric nanoantennas are insufficient to simultaneously meet these conditions. Here, for the 1st time, we designed and fabricated tall Si nanoantenna arrays on quartz substrate to support two partially overlapping y polarized quasi bound-state-in-the-continuum (q-BIC) modes in the red wavelengths with sharp spectral edges. These structures produce possibly the most saturated and brightest reds with ~80% reflectance, exceeding the red vertex in sRGB and even the cadmium red pigment. We employed a gradient descent algorithm with structures supporting q BIC as the starting point. Although the current design is polarization dependent, the proposed paradigm has enabled us to achieve the elusive structural red and the design principle could be generalized to Schrodinger's pixels of other colors. The design is suitable for scale up using other nanofabrication techniques for larger area applications, such as red pixels in displays, decorative coatings, and miniaturized spectrometers with high wavelength selectivity.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Photonic Bound-States-in-the-Continuum Observed with an Electron Nanoprobe

Bound-states-in-the-continuum (BIC)is a wave-mechanical concept that generates resonances with vanishing spectral linewidths. It has many practical applications in Optics, such as narrow-band filters, mirror-less lasing, and nonlinear harmonic generation. As true BIC optical modes non-radiative and confined to the near field of nanostructures, they cannot be excited using propagating light. As a result, their direct experimental observation has been elusive. Rather than using light, we demonstrate probing BIC modes on arrays of silicon nanoantennas using a focused beam of electrons in a tranmission electron microscope. By combining cathodoluminescence (CL) and monochromated electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) with controlled nanofabrication, we provide direct experimental evidence of "true" BIC modes, and demonstrate a BIC mode in the visible spectrum at 720 nm. The ability to observe and quantify these guided resonances with a spatial precision more than two orders of magnitude higher than previous far-field measurements allows the probing of individual elements in the nano-antenna arrays. The high-resolution experimental results are supported by numerical simulations as well as multipolar decomposition analysis, allowing us to demonstrate that the coherent interaction length of the quasi-BIC resonance requires at least 6 neighboring antenna elements, achieving over 60 times higher emissivity than for unpatterned silicon.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2021

Multistate Tuning of Third Harmonic Generation in Fano-Resonant Hybrid Dielectric Metasurfaces

Hybrid dielectric metasurfaces have emerged as a promising approach to enhancing near field confinement and thus achieving high optical nonlinearity using low loss dielectrics. Additional flexibility in design and fabrication of hybrid metasurfaces allows dynamic control of light, which is value-added for a wider range of applications. Here, we demonstrate a tunable and efficient third harmonic generation (THG) via hybrid metasurfaces with phase change material Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) deposited on top of amorphous silicon nanostructutes. Fano resonance is excited to confine the incident light inside the hybrid metasurfaces, and an experimental quality factor ($Q$-factor) of 125 is achieved at the fundamental pump wavelength around 1210 nm. We demonstrate the switching between a turn-on state of Fano resonance in the amorphous state of GST and a turn-off state in its crystalline state and also gradual multistate tuning of THG emission at its intermediate state. We achieve a high THG conversion efficiency of $η = 2.9*10^{-6}$ %, which is more than ~32 times of that of a GST-based Fabry-Pèrot cavity under a similar pump laser power, thanks to the enhanced field confinement due to the Fano resonance. Our results show the strong potential of GST-based hybrid dielectric metasurfaces for efficient and tunable nonlinear optical devices.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2019

Structural Color 3D Printing By Shrinking Photonic Crystals

The rings, spots and stripes found on some butterflies, Pachyrhynchus weevils, and many chameleons are notable examples of natural organisms employing photonic crystals to produce colorful patterns. Despite advances in nanotechnology, we still lack the ability to print arbitrary colors and shapes in all three dimensions at this microscopic length scale. Commercial nanoscale 3D printers based on two-photon polymerization are incapable of patterning photonic crystal structures with the requisite ~300 nm lattice constant to achieve photonic stopbands/ bandgaps in the visible spectrum and generate colors. Here, we introduce a means to produce 3D-printed photonic crystals with a 5x reduction in lattice constants (periodicity as small as 280 nm), achieving sub-100-nm features with a full range of colors. The reliability of this process enables us to engineer the bandstructures of woodpile photonic crystals that match experiments, showing that observed colors can be attributed to either slow light modes or stopbands. With these lattice structures as 3D color volumetric elements (voxels), we printed 3D microscopic scale objects, including the first multi-color microscopic model of the Eiffel Tower measuring only 39-microns tall with a color pixel size of 1.45 microns. The technology to print 3D structures in color at the microscopic scale promises the direct patterning and integration of spectrally selective devices, such as photonic crystal-based color filters, onto free-form optical elements and curved surfaces.

physics.optics↗