OLED illuminated metasurfaces for holographic image projection.

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) are thin film optoelectronic devices that feature simple fabrication, light weight and broad tunability, which makes them widely used in mobile phone and TV displays. As a flat and surface-emitting light source, OLEDs are also used in emerging applications such as optical wireless communications, biophotonics and sensing, where the ability to integrate with other technologies makes them good candidates to realise miniaturised photonic platforms. Control of the OLED far-field emission is increasingly important for both displays and these emerging applications.

The role of ion dissolution in metal and metal oxide surface inactivation of SARS-CoV-2.

Anti-viral surface coatings are under development to prevent viral fomite transmission from high-traffic touch surfaces in public spaces. Copper's anti-viral properties have been widely documented, but the anti-viral mechanism of copper surfaces is not fully understood. We screened a series of metal and metal oxide surfaces for anti-viral activity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the causative agent of coronavirus disease (COVID-19).

On-Chip Optical Trapping with High NA Metasurfaces.

Optical trapping of small particles typically requires the use of high NA microscope objectives. Photonic metasurfaces are an attractive alternative to create strongly focused beams for optical trapping applications in an integrated platform. Here, we report on the design, fabrication, and characterization of optical metasurfaces with a numerical aperture up to 1.

Two-tier manipulation of holographic information.

Here we demonstrate the two-tier manipulation of holographic information using frequency-selective metasurfaces. Our results show that these devices can diffract light efficiently at designed frequency and environmental conditions. By changing the frequency and refractive index of the surrounding environment, the metasurfaces produce two different holographic images.

Red-Shifted Excitation and Two-Photon Pumping of Biointegrated GaInP/AlGaInP Quantum Well Microlasers.

Biointegrated intracellular microlasers have emerged as an attractive and versatile tool in biophotonics. Different inorganic semiconductor materials have been used for the fabrication of such biocompatible microlasers but often operate at visible wavelengths ill-suited for imaging through tissue. Here, we report on whispering gallery mode microdisk lasers made from a range of GaInP/AlGaInP multi-quantum well structures with compositions tailored to red-shifted excitation and emission.

All-optical manipulation of photonic membranes.

We demonstrate the all-optical manipulation of polymeric membranes in microfluidic environments. The membranes are decorated with handles for their use in holographic optical tweezers systems. Our results show that due to their form factor the membranes present a substantial increase in their mechanical stability, respect to micrometric dielectric particles.

Patterning Multicolor Hybrid Perovskite Films via Top-Down Lithography.

Lead-halide perovskites have attracted great attention due to their excellent optoelectronic properties, with rapid progress being made in their performance as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), photodiodes, and solar cells. Demonstrating large scale, high-resolution patterning of perovskites is a key enabling step to unlock their full potential for a range of optoelectronic applications. However, the development of a successful top-down lithography fabrication procedure has so far been hampered by the incompatibility of perovskite films with the solvents used during lithographic processes.

Non-obstructive intracellular nanolasers.

Molecular dyes, plasmonic nanoparticles and colloidal quantum dots are widely used in biomedical optics. Their operation is usually governed by spontaneous processes, which results in broad spectral features and limited signal-to-noise ratio, thus restricting opportunities for spectral multiplexing and sensing. Lasers provide the ultimate spectral definition and background suppression, and their integration with cells has recently been demonstrated.

Conformable Holographic Metasurfaces.

Metasurface holograms are typically fabricated on rigid substrates. Here we experimentally demonstrate broadband, flexible, conformable, helicity multiplexed metasurface holograms operating in the visible range, offering increased potential for real life out-of-the-lab applications. Two symmetrically distributed holographic images are obtained when circularly polarized light impinges on the reflective-type metasurface positioned on non-planar targets.

Flexible Nanowire Cluster as a Wearable Colorimetric Humidity Sensor.

Wearable plasmonic devices combine the advantages of high flexibility, ultrathinness, light weight, and excellent integration with the optical benefits mediated by plasmon-enhanced electric fields. However, two obstacles severely hinder further developments and applications of a wearable plasmonic device. One is the lack of efficient approach to obtaining devices with robust antimotion-interference property, i.

One-Dimensional Chirality: Strong Optical Activity in Epsilon-Near-Zero Metamaterials.

We suggest that electromagnetic chirality, generally displayed by 3D or 2D complex chiral structures, can occur in 1D patterned composites whose components are achiral. This feature is highly unexpected in a 1D system which is geometrically achiral since its mirror image can always be superposed onto it by a 180 deg rotation. We analytically evaluate from first principles the bianisotropic response of multilayered metamaterials and we show that the chiral tensor is not vanishing if the system is geometrically one-dimensional chiral; i.

Contra-directional coupling into slotted photonic crystals for spectrometric applications.

We propose and demonstrate the concept of a contra-directional coupler between a W1 and a slotted photonic crystal waveguide. The bandwidth and operating wavelength of such a coupler can be controlled via its geometrical parameters, and power transfer is not periodic unlike in the more familiar codirectional case. Light of specific wavelengths can be extracted from the W1 mode into air slot modes using this design, with W1/slot coupling efficiencies of up to 99±1%, and waveguide extracted coupling efficiencies of up to 51±12% demonstrated experimentally.

Reproducible surface-enhanced Raman quantification of biomarkers in multicomponent mixtures.

Direct and quantitative detection of unlabeled glycerophosphoinositol (GroPIns), an abundant cytosolic phosphoinositide derivative, would allow rapid evaluation of several malignant cell transformations. Here we report label-free analysis of GroPIns via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) with a sensitivity of 200 nM, well below its apparent concentration in cells. Crucially, our SERS substrates, based on lithographically defined gold nanofeatures, can be used to predict accurately the GroPIns concentration even in multicomponent mixtures, avoiding the preliminary separation of individual compounds.

Random super-prism wavelength meter.

The speckle pattern arising from a thin random, disordered scatterer may be used to detect the transversal mode of an incident beam. On the other hand, speckle patterns originating from meter-long multimode fibers can be used to detect different wavelengths. Combining these approaches, we develop a method that uses a thin random scattering medium to measure the wavelength of a near-infrared laser beam with picometer resolution.

Coherent control of plasmonic nanoantennas using optical eigenmodes.

The last decade has seen subwavelength focusing of the electromagnetic field in the proximity of nanoplasmonic structures with various designs. However, a shared issue is the spatial confinement of the field, which is mostly inflexible and limited to fixed locations determined by the geometry of the nanostructures, which hampers many applications. Here, we coherently address numerically and experimentally single and multiple plasmonic nanostructures chosen from a given array, resorting to the principle of optical eigenmodes.

Slotted photonic crystal sensors.

Optical biosensors are increasingly being considered for lab-on-a-chip applications due to their benefits such as small size, biocompatibility, passive behaviour and lack of the need for fluorescent labels. The light guiding mechanisms used by many of them results in poor overlap of the optical field with the target molecules, reducing the maximum sensitivity achievable. This review article presents a new platform for optical biosensors, namely slotted photonic crystals, which provide higher sensitivities due to their ability to confine, spatially and temporally, the optical mode peak within the analyte itself.

Optical guided mode resonance filter on a flexible substrate.

We demonstrate the operation of a flexible optical filter based on guided mode resonances that operates in the visible regime. The filter is fabricated on a free standing polymeric membrane of 1.3 μm thickness and we show how the geometrical design parameters of the filter determine its optical properties, and how various types of filter can be made with this scheme.

Luneburg lens in silicon photonics.

The Luneburg lens is an aberration-free lens that focuses light from all directions equally well. We fabricated and tested a Luneburg lens in silicon photonics. Such fully-integrated lenses may become the building blocks of compact Fourier optics on chips.

Integrated polymer microprisms for free space optical beam deflecting.

We demonstrate beam deflection and multiple channel communication in free space optical communications using microprisms integrated directly onto an array of vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). The design and fabrication of such a transmitter is presented, and shown to achieve beam deflection of up to 10 degrees in a planar configuration. A location discovery application, for use within a distributed network, is put forward and analysed.

Tunneling mediated by 2D+1 conical waves in a 1D lattice.

The propagation of 2D+1 wave packets in 1D band gap systems shows that the interplay of periodicity and nonlinearity leads to the spontaneous formation of fast and slow conical localized waves. Such nonlinear tunneling has features that differ on the two edges of the band gap and it is characterized by the competition of bullets and nonlinear X waves.

Quadratic phase matching in slot waveguides.

We analyze phase matching with reference to frequency doubling in nanosized quadratic waveguides encompassing form birefringence and supporting cross-polarized fundamental and second-harmonic modes. In an AlGaAs rod with an air void, we show that phase-matched second-harmonic generation could be achieved in a wide spectral range employing state-of-the-art nanotechnology.

Impedance matching in photonic crystal microcavities for second-harmonic generation.

By numerically integrating the three-dimensional Maxwell equations in the time domain with reference to a dispersive quadratically nonlinear material, we study second-harmonic generation in planar photonic crystal microresonators. The proposed scheme allows efficient coupling of the pump radiation to the defect resonant mode. The outcoupled generated second harmonic is maximized by impedance matching the photonic crystal cavity to the output waveguide.

Frequency generation within the forbidden band gap: all optical Rabi-like splitting in photonic crystals and microcavities.

Based on three-dimensional time domain numerical simulations of the nonlinear dispersive Maxwell equations, we find evidence of all optical splitting of defect states in a photonic band gap structure. The result is analogous to the well known Rabi splitting and optical nutation in atomic two-level systems, and can be used for controlled in-gap generation of optical frequencies. Photon-echo-like behavior and third harmonic generation are also investigated.

Controlled transmission in the forbidden photonic bandgap via transient nonlinear states.

Using three-dimensional time-domain numerical simulations of the nonlinear dispersive Maxwell equations for a defect microcavity in a photonic crystal wire, we show that the transmission through the bandgap can be all-optically modulated via the generation of transient states associated with the nonlinear splitting of the defect mode. Analytical results based on time-domain coupled-mode theory are derived as well.