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Optical metasurfaces have emerged as promising candidates for multifunctional devices. Dynamically reconfigurable metasurfaces have been introduced by employing phase-change materials or by applying voltage, heat, or strain. While existing metasurfaces exhibit appealing properties, they do not express any significant nonlinear effects due to the negligible nonlinear responses from the typical materials used to build the metasurface. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate one kind of Kerr metasurface that shows strong intensity-dependent responses. The Kerr metasurface is composed of a top layer of gold antennas, a dielectric spacer, and a ground layer of metallic quantum wells (MQWs). Because of the large Kerr nonlinearity supported by the MQWs, the effective optical properties of the MQWs can change from metallic to dielectric with increasing of the input intensity, leading to dramatic modifications of the metasurface responses. This opens up new routes for potential applications in the field of nonlinear optics.

Integrated modulators are key components for on-chip optical communication and information processing, which have become leading technologies in the current information-growth era. Hence, high-speed, efficient, and compact integrated modulators are in high demand. However, the current integrated midinfrared modulators meet these requirements with difficulty. Here, we present a high-speed and efficient on-chip electro-optic modulator based on midinfrared hyperbolic metamaterials using stacking of graphene and hexagonal boron nitride. The length of the modulation region is only 60 nm, which is integrated on a plasmonic waveguide composed of hyperbolic metamaterials. The maximum modulation depth is up to 30 dB, and the 3-dB modulation speed can reach up to 50 GHz, which is supported by a detailed study of a small-signal frequency-response model. Our work provides an alternative scheme for the design of modulators with the requirements of sub-100-nm integration and 50-GHz modulation speed or even beyond, which can be directly implemented into a two-dimensional-materials-based photonic integrated circuits platform.

Significance Edge detection is a fundamental tool in image processing, computing, and machine vision. Compared with digital processes, optical analog approaches show enormous advantages owing to its intrinsic parallel nature for high-speed operation. Recently, optical metamaterials and metasurfaces have performed edge detection via analog spatial differentiation, which shows superior integration capability compared with the traditional bulky system. Unfortunately, experimental realization of optical-edge detection with metamaterials and metasurfaces remains challenging based on previous theoretical proposals. Here, we demonstrated a mechanism to realize an optical spatial differentiator consisting of a designed metasurface sandwiched by two orthogonally aligned linear polarizers. This approach relies on spin-orbit interaction of light and the metasurface, showing versatile edge-detection capability with exceptional quality., Optical edge detection is a useful method for characterizing boundaries, which is also in the forefront of image processing for object detection. As the field of metamaterials and metasurface is growing fast in an effort to miniaturize optical devices at unprecedented scales, experimental realization of optical edge detection with metamaterials remains a challenge and lags behind theoretical proposals. Here, we propose a mechanism of edge detection based on a Pancharatnam–Berry-phase metasurface. We experimentally demonstrated broadband edge detection using designed dielectric metasurfaces with high optical efficiency. The metasurfaces were fabricated by scanning a focused laser beam inside glass substrate and can be easily integrated with traditional optical components. The proposed edge-detection mechanism may find important applications in image processing, high-contrast microscopy, and real-time object detection on compact optical platforms such as mobile phones and smart cameras.

On-chip plasmonic circuitry offers a promising route to meet the ever-increasing requirement for device density and data bandwidth in information processing. As the key building block, electrically-driven nanoscale plasmonic sources such as nanoLEDs, nanolasers, and nanojunctions have attracted intense interest in recent years. Among them, surface plasmon (SP) sources based on inelastic electron tunneling (IET) have been demonstrated as an appealing candidate owing to the ultrafast quantum-mechanical tunneling response and great tunability. However, the major barrier to the demonstrated IET-based SP sources is their low SP excitation efficiency due to the fact that elastic tunneling of electrons is much more efficient than inelastic tunneling. Here, we remove this barrier by introducing resonant inelastic electron tunneling (RIET)—follow a recent theoretical proposal—at the visible/near-infrared (NIR) frequencies and demonstrate highly-efficient electrically-driven SP sources. In our system, RIET is supported by a TiN/Al2O3 metallic quantum well (MQW) heterostructure, while monocrystalline silver nanorods (AgNRs) were used for the SP generation (localized surface plasmons (LSPs)). In principle, this RIET approach can push the external quantum efficiency (EQE) close to unity, opening up a new era of SP sources for not only high-performance plasmonic circuitry, but also advanced optical sensing applications., On-chip circuits based on plasmonic systems are a promising potential technology. Here the authors present efficient, on-chip, localized plasmonic excitation based on resonant inelastic electron tunneling with metallic quantum well junction.

Breakthroughs in the field of object recognition facilitate ubiquitous applications in the modern world, ranging from security and surveillance equipment to accessibility devices for the visually impaired. Recently-emerged optical computing provides a fundamentally new computing modality to accelerate its solution with photons; however, it still necessitates digital processing for in situ application, inextricably tied to Moore’s law. Here, from an entirely optical perspective, we introduce the concept of neuro-metamaterials that can be applied to realize a dynamic object- recognition system. The neuro-metamaterials are fabricated from inhomogeneous metamaterials or transmission metasurfaces, and optimized using, such as topology optimization and deep learning. We demonstrate the concept in experiments where living rabbits play freely in front of the neuro-metamaterials, which enable to perceive in light speed the rabbits’ representative postures. Furthermore, we show how this capability enables a new physical mechanism for creating dynamic optical mirages, through which a sequence of rabbit movements is converted into a holographic video of a different animal. Our work provides deep insight into how metamaterials could facilitate a myriad of in situ applications, such as illusive cloaking and speed-of-light information display, processing, and encryption, possibly ushering in an “Optical Internet of Things” era.

Remotely switchable edge imaging is demonstrated on the basis of the metasurface illuminated by polarization-entangled photons., Metasurfaces consisting of engineered dielectric or metallic structures provide unique solutions to realize exotic phenomena including negative refraction, achromatic focusing, electromagnetic cloaking, and so on. The intersection of metasurface and quantum optics may lead to new opportunities but is much less explored. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate that a polarization-entangled photon source can be used to switch ON or OFF the optical edge detection mode in an imaging system based on a high-efficiency dielectric metasurface. This experiment enriches both fields of metasurface and quantum optics, representing a promising direction toward quantum edge detection and image processing with remarkable signal-to-noise ratio.

Our work combines the extreme nonlinear properties in MQWs with the implementation of metasurface. We introduce the quantum multilayer composed of TiN/Al2O3 as a tunable metamaterial, which couples with the localized plasmonic resonances (gap plasmon) of an array of gold nano-antennas forming a meta-device. When the metasurface sample is illuminated by a collimated low-intensity laser with a linear polarization, the reflected beam is being diffracted as the left- and right-handed circularly polarized (LCP and RCP) components into 1 order, respectively. While for the case of a high-intensity laser illumination, the metasurface will act as a mirror, i.e. the linear polarization remains unchanged with both RCP and LCP components reflected to its zero-order. Furthermore, a tunable hologram is demonstrated based on our proposed design. A clear image is observed when the metasurface is illuminated by a low-intensity laser, while for the high-intensity case, the image will disappears Our finding paves the way for nonlinear optical modulators25, high speed all-optical switchs26 and reflective tunable displays.

Investigation of new plasmonic material platforms with large optical nonlinearity is crucial for the continued development of nonlinear optics and its applications. Here we report an enhanced second order nonlinear effect in metallic quantum wells (QWs) where the intersubband transition plays a dominant role. Centrosymmetry in these metallic QWs is broken by forming multilayers with chemically and structurally distinct barrier oxides above and below a metal nanofilm. For Au-based QWs, we show that a large χ(2), measured by second harmonic generation (SHG), around 229.6 pm/V at the near infrared (NIR) wavelength of 940 nm was achieved in an asymmetric metallic QW of SiO2|Au|HfO2 on a fused silica substrate.

Optical analog signal processing technology has been widely studied and applied in a variety of science and engineering fields, with the advantages of overcoming the low-speed and high-power consumption associated with its digital counterparts. Much attention has been given to emerging metasurface technology in the field of optical imaging and processing systems. Here, we demonstrate, for the first time, broadband two-dimensional spatial differentiation and high-contrast edge imaging based on a dielectric metasurface across the whole visible spectrum. This edge detection method works for both intensity and phase objects simply by inserting the metasurface into a commercial optical microscope. This highly efficient metasurface performing a basic optical differentiation operation opens up new opportunities in applications of fast, compactible and power-efficient ultrathin devices for data processing and biological imaging., High-contrast broadband two-dimensional edge detection is demonstrated for both the intensity and phase objects, which brings fast and power-efficient metasurfaces for optical information processing and imaging one step closer to the reality.

Sub–100-nm metallic quantum well heterostructures are able to restrict optical pulses with the intensity up to 400 GW/cm2., The past several decades have witnessed rapid development of high-intensity, ultrashort pulse lasers, enabling deeper laboratory investigation of nonlinear optics, plasma physics, and quantum science and technology than previously possible. Naturally, with their increasing use, the risk of accidental damage to optical detection systems rises commensurately. Thus, various optical limiting mechanisms and devices have been proposed. However, restricted by the weak optical nonlinearity of natural materials, state-of-the-art optical limiters rely on bulk liquid or solid media, operating in the transmission mode. Device miniaturization becomes complicated with these designs while maintaining superior integrability and controllability. Here, we demonstrate a reflection-mode pulse limiter (sub–100 nm) using nanoscale refractory films made of Al2O3/TiN/Al2O3 metallic quantum wells (MQWs), which provide large and ultrafast Kerr-type optical nonlinearities due to the quantum size effect of the MQW. Functional multilayers consisting of these MQWs could find important applications in nanophotonics, nonlinear optics, and meta-optics.

All-optical modulators with ultrahigh speed are in high demand due to the rapid development of optical interconnection and computation. However, due to weak photon–photon interaction, the advancement of all-optical modulators is consequently hampered by the large footprint and high power consumption. In this work, the enhanced sensitivity around an exceptional point (EP) from parity-time (PT) symmetry theory is initiatively introduced into a nonlinear all-optical modulator design. Further, a non-Hermitian all-optical modulator based on PT symmetry is proposed, which utilizes the large Kerr nonlinearity from indium tin oxide (ITO) in its epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) region. The whole system is expected to operate around EP, giving rise to the advantages of nanoscale integration and large modulation depth. This presented modulator with high efficiency and high-speed all-optical control can be commendably extended to the design methodology of various nanostructures and further prompt the development of all-optical signal processing.

An optical metamaterial is capable of manipulating light in nanometer scale that goes beyond what is possible with conventional materials. Taking advantage of this special property, metamaterial-assisted illumination nanoscopy (MAIN) possesses tremendous potential to extend the resolution far beyond conventional structured illumination microscopy. Among the available MAIN designs, hyperstructured illumination that utilizes strong dispersion of a hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) is one of the most promising and practical approaches, but it is only theoretically studied. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrate the concept of hyperstructured illumination. A ∼80 nm resolution has been achieved in a well-known Ag/SiO2 multilayer HMM system by using a low numerical aperture objective (NA = 0.5), representing a 6-fold resolution enhancement of the diffraction limit. The resolution can be significantly improved by further material optimization.

We design, fabricate and analyze a nanostructured plasmonic light emitting diode (LED) that simultaneously increases modulation speed and radiative efficiency, compared to conventional LEDs and unp...

Meta-lens represents a promising solution for optical communications and information processing owing to its miniaturization capability and desirable optical properties. Here, spin Hall meta-lens is demonstrated to manipulate photonic spin-dependent splitting induced by spin-orbital interaction in transverse and longitudinal directions simultaneously at visible wavelengths, with low dispersion and more than 90% diffraction efficiency. The broadband dielectric spin Hall meta-lens is achieved by integrating two geometric phase lenses with different functionalities into one single dynamic phase lens, which manifests the ultracompact, portable, and polarization-dependent features. The broadband spin Hall meta-lens may find important applications in imaging, sensing, and multifunctional spin photonics devices.

Nanoscale light source is the key element for on-chip integrated optical communication system. As an important property of light source, polarization can be exploited to improve the information capacity of optical communication and the sensitivity of optical sensing. We demonstrate a novel TE-polarized light source based on graphene-nanoribbon (G-NR) hybrid structure. Thanks to the polarizing dependent absorption along graphene layer, the random polarized emission of nanoribbon (NR) can be transferred into the same TE polarization. In addition, lasing action in G-NR hybrid structure is also investigated. We attribute the polarization control to the differential attenuation of electromagnetic modes in graphene. Our simulation revealed electromagnetic field distribution and far field polar images of TE and TM modes in nanoribbon, which is consistent with experimental results. The compact G-NR hybrid structure light source offers a new way to realize the polarization controllable nanoscale light source and facilitate the practical applications of nanowire or nanoribbon light source.

New materials that exhibit strong second-order optical nonlinearities at a desired operational frequency are of paramount importance for nonlinear optics. Giant second-order susceptibility χ(2) has been obtained in semiconductor quantum wells (QWs). Unfortunately, the limited confining potential in semiconductor QWs causes formidable challenges in scaling such a scheme to the visible/near-infrared (NIR) frequencies for more vital nonlinear-optic applications. Here, we introduce a metal/dielectric heterostructured platform, i.e., TiN/Al2O3 epitaxial multilayers, to overcome that limitation. This platform has an extremely high χ(2) of approximately 1500 pm/V at NIR frequencies. By combining the aforementioned heterostructure with the large electric field enhancement afforded by a nanostructured metasurface, the power efficiency of second harmonic generation (SHG) achieved 10−4 at an incident pulse intensity of 10 GW/cm2, which is an improvement of several orders of magnitude compared to that of previous demonstrations from nonlinear surfaces at similar frequencies. The proposed quantum-engineered heterostructures enable efficient wave mixing at visible/NIR frequencies into ultracompact nonlinear optical devices.

Light emission from biased tunnel junctions has recently gained much attention owing to its unique potential to create ultracompact optical sources with terahertz modulation bandwidth1–5. The emission originates from an inelastic electron tunnelling process in which electronic energy is transferred to surface plasmon polaritons and subsequently converted to radiation photons by an optical antenna. Because most of the electrons tunnel elastically, the emission efficiency is typically about 10−5–10−4. Here, we demonstrate efficient light generation from enhanced inelastic tunnelling using nanocrystals assembled into metal–insulator–metal junctions. The colour of the emitted light is determined by the optical antenna and thus can be tuned by the geometry of the junction structures. The efficiency of far-field free-space light generation reaches ~2%, showing an improvement of two orders of magnitude over previous work3,4. This brings on-chip ultrafast and ultracompact light sources one step closer to reality. Nanocrystals assembled into metal–insulator–metal junctions can boost the efficiency of light generation from enhanced inelastic tunnelling to ~2%, which is a two orders of magnitude improvement over previous work, paving the way to on-chip ultrafast and ultracompact light sources.

A nonlinear metasurface is demonstrated numerically based on the recently developed quantum-sized gold film. The active functionality of the metasurface is realized by varying the incident optical power through the ultrahigh Kerr nonlinearity of the quantum-sized gold films. In the low power region, the device acts as a normal reflecting surface, while it becomes a phase grating with most energy in the ±1 diffraction modes when the optical power increases and the nonlinear effect plays a dominating role. Unlike previously demonstrated nonlinear metasurfaces focusing on nonlinear frequency generation, the functionality of our device may be modulated by the power of incident light. As the first nonlinear metasurface that is based on optical Kerr nonlinearity, our design may lead to various applications, such as optical limiters and tunable phase gratings.

The optical properties of thin gold films with thickness varying from 2.5 nm to 30 nm are investigated. Due to the quantum size effect, the optical constants of the thin gold film deviate from the Drude model for bulk material as film thickness decreases, especially around 2.5 nm, where the electron energy level becomes discrete. A theory based on the self-consistent solution of the Schrödinger equation and the Poisson equation is proposed and its predictions agree well with experimental results.

Organic-inorganic hybrid perovskites have demonstrated tremendous potential for the next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices due to their remarkable carrier dynamics. Current studies are focusing on polycrystals, since controlled growth of device compatible single crystals is extremely challenging. Here, the first chemical epitaxial growth of single crystal CH3 NH3 PbBr3 with controlled locations, morphologies, and orientations, using combined strategies of advanced microfabrication, homoepitaxy, and low temperature solution method is reported. The growth is found to follow a layer-by-layer model. A light emitting diode array, with each CH3 NH3 PbBr3 crystal as a single pixel, with enhanced quantum efficiencies than its polycrystalline counterparts is demonstrated.

This study was performed to analyze the aging-related changes of the female condylar bone mineral density (BMD) and trabecular structure by cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT), and determine whether the condylar structure shows obvious changes after menopause. The CBCT images of 160 female patients who met the inclusion criteria for the study were collected and divided into four groups by age (20–29 years, 30–39 years, premenopausal, and postmenopausal groups). Computer processing software CT-Analyser (Version 1.15.2.2+; SkyScan, Antwerp, Belgium) was used to measure the condylar BMD and related indexes, namely the bone volume/tissue volume ratio (BV/TV), trabecular number (Tb.N), trabecular thickness (Tb.Th), trabecular separation (Tb.Sp), trabecular structure model index (SMI), and bone surface area/volume ratio (BS/BV). SPSS 12.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used to analyze the radiographic findings and statistical differences. No significant differences were found between the bilateral condyles in each group (P > 0.05). BV/TV, Tb.N, and Tb.Th of the condyle decreased with age, and the postmenopausal group showed significantly different values for each index compared with the other groups (P

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) from single GaN nanpoillar is reported. A model for the SHG processes in the GaN nanopillar as a function of diameter is presented; the analysis showed quantitatively that the SHG is dominated by its surface area. The effective second order nonlinear optical susceptibility increases as the diameter of the GaN nanopillar decreases, reaching a value of 136 pm/V at 150nm diameter, making them attractive for modulator applications.

We demonstrate a dynamic surface plasmonic modulation based on graphene-nanowire (grapheme-NW) hybrid structures in the visible light range. A static modulation depth of as high as 0.07 dB/μm has been achieved experimentally. Through careful simulation and systematical experimental investigation, we found that the dual-confinement effect of charge density and electromagnetic energy around the vicinity of the NW will dramatically enhance the light-matter interaction and increase the Fermi level shifting, which are the key roles for bringing the optical response of the device to the visible range. The carrier concentration near the vicinity of a Ag NW is estimated to reach 0.921×10(14) cm(-2) after applying more than 25 V voltages, which is enough to shift the Fermi level for visible light. Furthermore, the modulation behaviors near the Dirac point of monolayer graphene and the singularity of gap-induced bilayer graphene are investigated. Calculated optical conductivity as a function of Fermi level predicts a minimum value near the Dirac point, which is consistent with the experimental results.

Efficient light generation from inelastic tunneling using self-assembled edge-to-edge single crystalline silver nanocubes has been demonstrated with efficiency up to ∼2 × 10−3, which brings on-chip ultrafast optical sources one step closer to reality.

With the size of plasmonic devices entering into the nanoscale region, the impact of quantum physics needs to be considered. In the past, the quantum size effect on linear material properties has been studied extensively. However, the nonlinear aspects have not been explored much so far. On the other hand, much effort has been put into the field of integrated nonlinear optics and a medium with large nonlinearity is desirable. Here we study the optical nonlinear properties of a nanometre scale gold quantum well by using the z-scan method and nonlinear spectrum broadening technique. The quantum size effect results in a giant optical Kerr susceptibility, which is four orders of magnitude higher than the intrinsic value of bulk gold and several orders larger than traditional nonlinear media. Such high nonlinearity enables efficient nonlinear interaction within a microscopic footprint, making quantum metallic films a promising candidate for integrated nonlinear optical applications., When plasmonic structures reach the nanoscale, quantum size effects become important for their optical properties. Here, Qian et al. find a giant third-order nonlinear Kerr response from nanometre thick gold quantum wells, which they attribute to quantum size effects.

The conventional optical microscope is an inherently two-dimensional (2D) imaging tool. The objective lens, eyepiece and image sensor are all designed to capture light emitted from a 2D ‘object plane’. Existing technologies, such as confocal or light sheet fluorescence microscopy have to utilize mechanical scanning, a time-multiplexing process, to capture a 3D image. In this paper, we present a 3D optical microscopy method based upon simultaneously illuminating and detecting multiple focal planes. This is implemented by adding two diffractive optical elements to modify the illumination and detection optics. We demonstrate that the image quality of this technique is comparable to conventional light sheet fluorescent microscopy with the advantage of the simultaneous imaging of multiple axial planes and reduced number of scans required to image the whole sample volume.

Semiconductor quantum well (QW) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have limited temporal modulation bandwidth of a few hundred MHz due to the long carrier recombination lifetime. Material doping and structure engineering typically leads to incremental change in the carrier recombination rate, whereas the plasmonic-based Purcell effect enables dramatic improvement for modulation frequency beyond the GHz limit. By stacking Ag-Si multilayers, the resulting hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) have shown tunability in the plasmonic density of states for enhancing light emission at various wavelengths. Here, nanopatterned Ag-Si multilayer HMMs are utilized for enhancing spontaneous carrier recombination rates in InGaN/GaN QWs. An enhancement of close to 160-fold is achieved in the spontaneous recombination rate across a broadband of working wavelengths accompanied by over tenfold enhancement in the QW peak emission intensity, thanks to the outcoupling of dominating HMM modes. The integration of nanopatterned HMMs with InGaN QWs will lead to ultrafast and bright QW LEDs with a 3 dB modulation bandwidth beyond 100 GHz for applications in high-speed optoelectronic devices, optical wireless communications, and light-fidelity networks.