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In contrast to the high performances of long-range, high-speed optical information transfer, optical information processing remains outperformed by electronic microprocessing. The two mains reasons are the lack of gain medium that hampers the development of an optical analogue of the transistor and the lack of compactness of the approaches proposed so far. Here, we demonstrate a new concept of the design of all-optical elementary computing units based on the shaping of plasmonic modal landscape in micrometric on-chip 2D cavities to realize reconfigurable Arithmetic and Logic Units (ALU). Our interconnect-free devices perform multi-bit logic gate functions in a single cavity without ALU cascading, therefore obviating loss in vias and so the need for gain to restore the binary signal. Moreover, an astute cavity design allows to reconfigure a single cavity into multiple logic functions, including a first full adder. The main challenge on the way to increasing the functional Boolean complexity is the design of the cavity shape and of the excitation/detection parameters for which an approach based on artificial intelligence will be implemented.

Resonances, also known as quasinormal modes (QNMs) in the non-Hermitian case, play a ubiquitous role in all domains of physics ruled by wave phenomena, notably in continuum mechanics, acoustics, electrodynamics, and quantum theory. The non-Hermiticity arises from the system losses, whether they are material (Joule losses in electromagnetism) or linked to the openness of the problem (radiation losses). In this paper, we focus on the latter delicate matter when considering bounded computational domains mandatory when using, e.g., finite elements. We address the important question of whether dispersive perfectly matched layer (PML) and high-order absorbing boundary conditions offer advantages in QNM computation and modal expansion of the optical responses compared with nondispersive PMLs.

Light emission of europium (Eu 3+ ) ions placed in the vicinity of optically resonant nanoantennas is usually controlled by tailoring the local density of photon states (LDOS). We show that the polarization and shape of the excitation beam can also be used to manipulate light emission, as azimuthally or radially polarized cylindrical vector beam offers to spatially shape the electric and magnetic fields, in addition to the effect of silicon nanorings (Si-NRs) used as nanoantennas. The photoluminescence (PL) mappings of the Eu 3+ transitions and the Si phonon mappings are strongly dependent of both the excitation beam and the Si-NR dimensions. The experimental results of Raman scattering and photoluminescence are confirmed by numerical simulations of the near-field intensity in the Si nanoantenna and in the Eu 3+ -doped film, respectively. The branching ratios obtained from the experimental PL maps also reveal a redistribution of the electric and magnetic emission channels. Our results show that it could be possible to spatially control both electric and magnetic dipolar emission of Eu 3+ ions by switching the laser beam polarization, hence the near field at the excitation wavelength, and the electric and magnetic LDOS at the emission wavelength. This paves the way for optimized geometries taking advantage of both excitation and emission processes., (© 2023. Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics (CIOMP), CAS.)

We design planar silicon antennas for controlling the emission rate of magnetic or electric dipolar emitters. Evolutionary algorithms coupled to the Green Dyadic Method lead to different optimized geometries which depend on the nature and orientation of the dipoles. We discuss the physical origin of the obtained configurations thanks to modal analysis but also emphasize the role of nanoscale design of the LDOS. We complete our study using finite element method and demonstrate an enhancement up to 2 × 10 3 of the magnetic Purcell factor in europium ions. Our work brings together random optimizations to explore geometric parameters without constraint, a first order deterministic approach to understand the optimized designs and a modal analysis which clarifies the physical origin of the exaltation of the magnetic Purcell effect.

In this paper, we describe Fourier-based wave-front sensors (WFSs) as linear integral operators, characterized by their kernel. In the first part, we derive the dependency of this quantity with respect to the WFS's optical parameters: pupil geometry, filtering mask, and tip/tilt modulation. In the second part, we focus the study on the special case of convolutional kernels. The assumptions required to be in such a regime are described. We then show that these convolutional kernels allow to drastically simplify the WFS model by summarizing its behavior in a concise and comprehensive quantity called the WFS impulse response. We explain in particular how it allows to compute the sensor's sensitivity with respect to spatial frequencies. Such an approach therefore provides a fast diagnostic tool to compare and optimize Fourier-based WFSs. In the third part, we develop the impact of the residual phases on the sensor's impulse response, and show that the convolutional model remains valid. Finally, a section dedicated to the pyramid WFS concludes this work and illustrates how the slope maps are easily handled by the convolutional model.

A two-dimensional periodic sub-wavelength array of vertical dielectric cylinders on a glass substrate is studied numerically using three different electromagnetic approaches. It is shown that such structure can present a narrow-band spectral resonance characterized by large angular tolerances and 100% maximum in reflection. In particular, in a two-nanometer spectral bandwidth the reflectivity stays above 90% within angles of incidence exceeding 10 degrees for unpolarized light. Bloch modal analysis shows that these properties are due to the excitation of a hybrid mode that is created in the structure by a guided-like mode and a localized cavity mode. The first one is due to the collective effect of the array, while the second one comes from the mode(s) of a single step-index fiber.

An extensive numerical study of diffraction of a plane monochromatic wave by a single gold cone on a plane gold substrate and by a periodical array of such cones shows formation of curls in the map of the Poynting vector. They result from the interference between the incident wave, the wave reflected by the substrate, and the field scattered by the cone(s). In case of a single cone, when going away from its base along the surface, the main contribution in the scattered field is given by the plasmon surface wave (PSW) excited on the surface. As expected, it has a predominant direction of propagation, determined by the incident wave polarization. Two particular cones with height approximately 1/6 and 1/3 of the wavelength are studied in detail, as they present the strongest absorption and field enhancement when arranged in a periodic array. While the PSW excited by the smaller single cone shows an energy flux globally directed along the substrate surface, we show that curls of the Poynting vector generated with the larger cone touch the diopter surface. At this point, their direction is opposite to the energy flow of the PSW, which is then forced to jump over the vortex regions. Arranging the cones in a two-dimensional subwavelength periodic array (diffraction grating), supporting a specular reflected order only, resonantly strengthens the field intensity at the tip of cones and leads to a field intensity enhancement of the order of 10 000 with respect to the incident wave intensity. The enhanced field is strongly localized on the rounded top of the cones. It is accompanied by a total absorption of the incident light exhibiting large angular tolerances. This strongly localized giant field enhancement can be of much interest in many applications, including fluorescence spectroscopy, label-free biosensing, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), nonlinear optical effects and photovoltaics.