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We present narrow-band polarization-sensitive reflectance of GaN/AlGaN heterostructures in the mid-infrared range. Experimental measurements performed at 15° angle of incidence show the excitation of a Berreman mode at the interface between GaN and sapphire substrate. A transfer matrix method for anisotropic layers has been used to analyze the obtained results. The contribution of the two-dimensional electron gas at the interfaces of the heterostructures has been included by proper modelization of an effective thin layer.

We performed infrared optical characterization of polycrystalline β-Ga2O3 films, in the 10-18 μm range, deposited by metal organic chemical vapor deposition on sapphire substrates. Our results show that it is possible to obtain a dominant β-phase film, with a well-defined, normal to surface z-axis orientation. These results are confirmed by reflection spectra performed at 45° incidence angle which reveals a z-phonon Reststrahlen band as a function of the incident field linear polarization.

We investigated infrared reflectivity of undoped and Tungsten (W) doped Vanadium dioxide (VO2) films at varying temperatures. Undoped VO2 exhibited a clear phase transition at 100°C, achieving near 0% reflectivity, or perfect light absorption. As W doping concentration increased, the phase-transition temperature decreased, maintaining the zero-reflectivity condition. Only a 0.75% W doping enabled room temperature perfect absorption without heating the film.

We report a narrowband polarization-dependent reflectivity from Al-doped ZnO/ZnWO4 self-assembled eutectic composites in the mid-infrared range. Our results show a reflectivity modulation from 0.05 to 0.75 for two orthogonal polarizations of the incident field with a 10% Al concentration. Acting as natural polarizing filters these eutectic composites could open the way to the future development of low-cost photonics components in the IR.

We performed infrared optical characterization of polycrystalline MoO3 films deposited by pulsed laser deposition on fused silica substrates. Several samples have been fabricated using different parameters such as temperature and oxygen pressure. Our analysis shows that under appropriate fabrication conditions it is possible to obtain a dominant α-phase film, with a well-defined, normal to surface (z-axis) orientation. These results are confirmed by reflection spectra performed at 45° incidence angle revealing a strong modulation of the sharp z-phonon Reststrahlen band as a function of the incident field linear polarization.

We experimentally investigate the semiconductor-to-metal transition (SMT) in vanadium dioxide thin films using an infrared thermographic technique. During the semiconductor to metal phase change process, VO2 optical properties dynamically change and infrared emission undergoes a hysteresis loop due to differences between heating and cooling stages. The shape of the hysteresis loop was accurately monitored under different dynamic heating/cooling rates. In order to quantify and understand the effects of different rates, we used a numerical modelling approach in which a VO2 thin layer was modeled as metamaterial. The main experimental findings are interpreted assuming that both the rate of formation and shape of metallic inclusions are tuned with the heating/cooling rate. The structural transition from monoclinic to tetragonal phases is the main mechanism for controlling the global properties of the phase transition. However, our experimental results reveal that the dynamics of the heating/cooling process can become a useful parameter for further tuning options and lays out a macroscopic optical sensing scheme for the microscopic phase change dynamics of VO2. Our study sheds light on phase-transition dynamics and their effect on the infrared emission spectra of VO2 thin films, therefore enabling the heating/cooling rate to be an additional parameter to control infrared emission characteristics of thermal emitters. The hysteresis loop represents the phase coexistence region, thus being of fundamental importance for several applications, such as the operation of radiative thermal logic elements based on phase transition materials. For such applications, the phase transition region is shifted for heating and cooling processes. We also show that, depending on the way the phase change elements are heated, the temperature operation range will be slightly modified.

The phonon modes of materials contain critical information on the quality of the crystals. Phonon modes also offer a wide range of polarization-dependent resonances in infrared that can be tailored to applications that require large dielectric function contrast in different crystal directions. Here, we investigate the far-field characteristics of MOCVD-grown Ga2O3 thin films. With a combination of cross-polarization FTIR and AFM characterization techniques, we propose an easy and non-invasive route to distinguish κ and β phases of Ga2O3 and study the quality of these crystals. Using numerical methods and cross-polarization spectroscopy, the depolarization characteristics of β-Ga2O3 are examined and depolarization strength values as high as 0.495 and 0.76 are measured, respectively, for 400 and 800 nm-thick β-Ga2O3. The strong birefringence near optical phonon modes of an 800 nm β-Ga2O3 on a sapphire substrate is used to obtain several polarization states for the reflected light in the second atmospheric window 8–14 µm. We anticipate that our findings open a new path for material characterization and wave plate design for the mid-IR range and offer novel possibilities for the future of IR on-chip photonics, thanks to the compatibility of β-Ga2O3 with standard nanofabrication technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temperature tunability of complex dielectric constants of vanadium dioxide (VO2) makes it a promising phase-change material for use in active, dynamic, tunable photonics applications. Specifically, the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition in VO2 enables reversible, broadband, and large complex refractive index variation and paves the way for a plethora of applications. Although the critical temperature for phase-transition is 68 °C for VO2 films, its transition temperature can be reduced to room temperature by tungsten-doping of vanadium dioxide. Such a degree of freedom in controlling the critical temperature through tungsten doping provides further tunability of the thermochromic behavior. In this work, we investigate a variety of W-doped VO2 thin films deposited by laser ablation of targets with increasing W doping content and report detailed infrared characterization together with numerical simulations. Our experimental results indicate that the perfect absorption can be achieved at different temperatures, within the VO2 insulator-to-metal phase transition process, as a function of W doping content. Tunable subwavelength layers allow perfect absorption under different temperature conditions around λ = 12 µm. We show that a high dynamic range of reflectivity can be achieved when the temperature is increased above the phase transition temperature. Furthermore, we observe perfect absorption at 11.8 µm at room temperature for a W content of 0.75%. We believe that W-doped VO2 thin films with tunable and controllable perfect absorption will open the way for a class of promising thermo-optical devices including thermos-photovoltaics, infrared filters, radiative cooling devices, and thermal emitters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low‐symmetry van der Waals materials are promising candidates for the next generation of polarization‐sensitive on‐chip photonics since they do not require lattice matching for growth and integration. Due to their low‐symmetry crystal behavior, such materials exhibit anisotropic and polarization‐dependent optical properties for a wide range of optical frequencies. Here, depolarization characteristics of orthorhombic α‐MoO3 is studied in the visible range. Using polarizers and analyzers, it is demonstrated that α‐MoO3 has negligible loss and that birefringence values as high as 0.15 and 0.12 at 532 nm and 633 nm, respectively, are achievable. With such a high birefringence, quarter‐ and half‐wave plate actions are demonstrated for a 1400 nm α‐MoO3 flake at green (532 nm) and red (633 nm) wavelengths, and polarizability as high as 90% is reported. Furthermore, a system of double α‐MoO3 heterostructure layer is investigated that provides the possibility of tuning polarization as a function of rotation angle between the α‐MoO3 layers. These findings pave the way to the promising future of on‐chip photonic heterostructures and twist‐optics that can dictate the polarization state of light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanophotonics community has shown great interest in 2D materials because of their unique properties of electromagnetic field manipulation. Many of these materials exhibit strong natural anisotropy, which further opens possibilities of polarization manipulation. Here, we show that α-MoO3, an emerging natural hyperbolic 2D material, can be combined with plasmonic nanostructures to provide strong extrinsic chirality in the visible range. A combination of biaxial anisotropy in α-MoO3 and Fabry–Perot cavities with nanoscale features leads to different absorption of left and right circularly polarized photons, hence exhibiting circular dichroism (CD). Our simulation results predict that multilayer nanoscale-thick films including α-MoO3 are potential candidates for achieving extrinsic chirality across the visible range. Furthermore, we show a significant CD increase when the α-MoO3 layer is coupled with plasmonic nanohole arrays or plasmonic nanocubes. Such designs are achiral in geometry and therefore easier to fabricate. Moreover, we optimize the CD dissymmetry factor gCD for the nanocube-based design at 780 nm, obtaining 84%. We believe that utilizing biaxially anisotropic α-MoO3 films to control and engineer chiro-optical properties in the visible frequency range will open research directions and enable enhanced functionalities in chiro-optical control at the nanoscale, further leading to applications in chiral sensing and CD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New nanolayered coatings are designed and deposited on flexible plastic substrate having the thickness of 100 [micro]m, in order to realize lightweight ultrathin transparent shielding foils. The structure of the coating is optimized considering three figures of merit: the average transmittance in the visible range for normal incidence, the normalized average transmittance for oblique incidence at 550 nm, and the transmittance quality factor. The nanotechnology exploited for the deposition of the transparent metals is the dual ion beam sputtering. Tests of durability, optical transmission, and shielding effectiveness demonstrate that the film has a high adhesion under mechanical solicitation, high resistance against aging, peak transmittance in the visible range higher than 70%, omnidirectional properties in the range 0[degrees]-60[degrees], and shielding effectiveness of 40 dB up to 6 GHz. Index Terms--Nanotechnology, optical coating, shielding, thin film.

The aim of this paper is to present an innovative one-dimensional photonic bandgap structure on plastic substrate, for electromagnetic field shielding applications in the radio frequency range. A complete study is performed, from material characterization and design, to fabrication and experimental test of a prototype sample consisting of seven alternating zinc oxide and silver (Ag) layers, on Lexan polycarbonate. The transparent metal is designed to obtain high shielding effectiveness (SE), not just as a theoretical prediction, but as experimentally measured according to the standard ASTM-D 4935/89. Actually, the shielding performance of multilayered coatings having similar values of sheet resistance but different design are strongly affected by the bonding conditions. The following properties of the structure, which contains only 66 nm of Ag, are highlighted: 1) it remains transparent in the visible range; 2) it retains the conductivity of bulk metal; 3) it has SE in the 30-kHz to 1-GHz range over 40 dB; 4) the overall thickness of the muitilayer shielding coating is 312 nm; and 5) it has been realized on both glass or plastic substrate. Index Terms--Electromagnetic (EM) shielding, nanotechnology, photonic bandgap (PBG), thin film, transparent metal.