Recent years have seen a rapid expansion of research into nanophotonics based on surface plasmon–polaritons. These electromagnetic waves propagate along metal–dielectric interfaces and can be guided by metallic nanostructures beyond the diffraction limit. This remarkable capability has unique prospects for the design of highly integrated photonic signal-processing systems, nanoresolution optical imaging techniques and sensors. This Review summarizes the basic principles and major achievements of plasmon guiding, and details the current state-of-the-art in subwavelength plasmonic waveguides, passive and active nanoplasmonic components for the generation, manipulation and detection of radiation, and configurations for the nanofocusing of light. Potential future developments and applications of nanophotonic devices and circuits are also discussed, such as in optical signals processing, nanoscale optical devices and near-field microscopy with nanoscale resolution.

Plasmonics beyond the diffraction limit

The advent of negative index materials has spawned extensive research into metamaterials over the past decade. Metamaterials are attractive not only for their exotic electromagnetic properties, but also their promise for applications. A particular branch–the metamaterial perfect absorber (MPA)–has garnered interest due to the fact that it can achieve unity absorptivity of electromagnetic waves. Since its first experimental demonstration in 2008, the MPA has progressed significantly with designs shown across the electromagnetic spectrum, from microwave to optical. In this Progress Report we give an overview of the field and discuss a selection of examples and related applications. The ability of the MPA to exhibit extreme performance flexibility will be discussed and the theory underlying their operation and limitations will be established. Insight is given into what we can expect from this rapidly expanding field and future challenges will be addressed.

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adma.201200674

Metamaterial Electromagnetic Wave Absorbers

A new type of cloak is discussed: one that gives all cloaked objects the appearance of a flat conducting sheet. It has the advantage that none of the parameters of the cloak is singular and can in fact be made isotropic. It makes broadband cloaking in the optical frequencies one step closer.

Hiding under the Carpet: A New Strategy for Cloaking

The possibility of cloaking an object from detection by electromagnetic waves has recently become a topic of considerable interest. The design of a cloak uses transformation optics, in which a conformal coordinate transformation is applied to Maxwell's equations to obtain a spatially distributed set of constitutive parameters that define the cloak. Here, we present an experimental realization of a cloak design that conceals a perturbation on a flat conducting plane, under which an object can be hidden. To match the complex spatial distribution of the required constitutive parameters, we constructed a metamaterial consisting of thousands of elements, the geometry of each element determined by an automated design process. The ground-plane cloak can be realized with the use of nonresonant metamaterial elements, resulting in a structure having a broad operational bandwidth (covering the range of 13 to 16 gigahertz in our experiment) and exhibiting extremely low loss. Our experimental results indicate that this type of cloak should scale well toward optical wavelengths.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/323/5912/366.full.pdf

Broadband Ground-Plane Cloak

Transformation optics describes the capability to design the path of light waves almost at will through the use of metamaterials that control effective materials properties on a subwavelength scale. In this review, the physics and applications of transformation optics are discussed.

Transformation optics and metamaterials

A cylindrical wave expansion method is developed to obtain the scattering field for an ideal two-dimensional cylindrical invisibility cloak. A near-ideal model of the invisibility cloak is set up to solve the boundary problem at the inner boundary of the cloak shell. We confirm that a cloak with the ideal material parameters is a perfect invisibility cloak by systematically studying the change of the scattering coefficients from the near-ideal case to the ideal one. However, because of the slow convergence of the zeroth-order scattering coefficients, a tiny perturbation on the cloak would induce a noticeable field scattering and penetration.

Ideal Cylindrical Cloak: Perfect but Sensitive to Tiny Perturbations

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.biomac.6b00145

Optically Transparent Wood from a Nanoporous Cellulosic Template: Combining Functional and Structural Performance

Photothermal effects in plasmonic nanostructures have great potentials in applications for photothermal cancer therapy, optical storage, thermo-photovoltaics, etc. However, the transient temperature behavior of a nanoscale material system during an ultrafast photothermal process has rarely been accurately investigated. Here a heat transfer model is constructed to investigate the temporal and spatial variation of temperature in plasmonic gold nanostructures. First, as a benchmark scenario, we study the light-induced heating of a gold nanosphere in water and calculate the relaxation time of the nanosphere excited by a modulated light. Second, we investigate heating and reshaping of gold nanoparticles in a more complex metamaterial absorber structure induced by a nanosecond pulsed light. The model shows that the temperature of the gold nanoparticles can be raised from room temperature to >795 K in just a few nanoseconds with a low light luminance, owing to enhanced light absorption through strong plasmonic r...

Nanosecond Photothermal Effects in Plasmonic Nanostructures

We analyze transmission characteristics of two coupled identical cavities, of either standing-wave (SW) or traveling-wave (TW) type, based on temporal coupled mode theory. Mode splitting is observe ...

/pdf/coupled-mode-theory-analysis-of-mode-splitting-in-coupled-2gnja6l5ti.pdf

Coupled mode theory analysis of mode-splitting in coupled cavity system.

We propose a novel design for a photonic crystal fiber based surface plasmonic resonance sensor. The sensor consists of selectively metal-coated air holes containing analyte channels, which enhance the phase matching between the plasmonic mode and the core-guided mode. Good refractive index sensitivity as high as 5500 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) can be achieved in the proposed structure. Compared with the entirely coated structure, the selectively coated sensor design demonstrates narrower resonance spectral width. Moreover, the greater resonance depth can improve the sensing performance in terms of signal to noise ratio (SNR). The improvements in spectral width and SNR can both contribute to a better detection limit for this refractive index sensor.

/pdf/a-selectively-coated-photonic-crystal-fiber-based-surface-csclld1f0h.pdf

Min Yan

Papers

Ideal Cylindrical Cloak: Perfect but Sensitive to Tiny Perturbations

Optically Transparent Wood from a Nanoporous Cellulosic Template: Combining Functional and Structural Performance

Nanosecond Photothermal Effects in Plasmonic Nanostructures

Coupled mode theory analysis of mode-splitting in coupled cavity system.

A selectively coated photonic crystal fiber based surface plasmon resonance sensor