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Zusammenfassung Ellipsometrie ist eine der vielseitigsten Methoden zur optischen Nanostrukturcharakterisierung. Insbesondere die Müller-Matrix-Ellipsometrie ermöglicht die Messung von optischen oder geometrischen Parametern mit Genauigkeiten bis in den Sub-Nanometer-Bereich. In der konventionellen Ellipsometrie wird dabei über die komplette Beleuchtungspunktgröße gemittelt. Wenn der strukturierte Bereich auf der Probe kleiner ist als der Beleuchtungspunkt, oder die Struktur keine Periodizität aufweist, kann das Messergebnis durch in den Randbereichen reflektiertes Licht beeinträchtigt werden. Besonders problematisch ist dies bei freistehenden Nanostrukturen mit charakteristischen Größen kleiner als die Beleuchtungspunktgröße. In solchen Fällen kann abbildende Ellipsometrie genutzt werden. Dabei wird eine Müller-Matrix für jedes Pixel in einem Kamerabild gemessen, wodurch der Polarisationseinfluss der Probe lokal bestimmt wird. In diesem Beitrag liefern wir Ansätze, konkrete Zusammenhänge zwischen geometrischen Eigenschaften von Nanostrukturen auf Nebendiagonalelemente der Müller-Matrix zu ermitteln. Dazu haben wir einen Aufbau für die Messung von Müller-Matrix-Bildern bei verschiedenen Einfallswinkeln in Transmission und Reflexion realisiert sowie eine Probe gefertigt, mit der wir geometrische Struktureigenschaften in Müller-Matrix-Bildern systematisch messen. Wir stellen Messungen sowie numerische Simulationen zum Vergleich der Ergebnisse vor. Des Weiteren diskutieren wir thermische Einflüsse auf Messergebnisse und stellen einen Algorithmus zu deren Behandlung vor.

Today’s 3D dynamic holographic display techniques suffer from severe limitations due to an available number of pixels that is several orders of magnitude lower than required by conventional approaches. We introduce a solution to this problem by introducing the concept of functional pixels. This concept is based on pixels that individually spatially modulate the amplitude and phase of incident light with a polynomial function, rather than just a constant phase or amplitude. We show that even in the simple case of a linear modulation of the phase, the pixel count can be drastically reduced up to 3 orders of magnitude while preserving most of the image details. This scheme can be easily implemented with already existing technology, such as micro mirror arrays that provide tip, tilt and piston movement. Even though the individual pixels need to be technologically more advanced, the comparably small number of such pixels required to form a display may pave the way towards true holographic dynamic 3D displays.

The most precise measurement tools of humankind are equipped with ultra-stable lasers. State-of-the-art laser stabilization techniques are based on external cavities, that are limited by noise originated in the coatings of the cavity mirrors. Microstructured mirror coatings (so-called meta-mirrors) are a promising technology to overcome the limitations of coating noise and therewith pave the way towards next-generation ultra-stable lasers. We present the first experimental realization of a 10,000-finesse optical cavity based on a low-noise meta-mirror, representing a milestone in this field. The symbiosis of the presented mirror technology with silicon cavity spacers will result in a 5×10−18 laser stability, which is an order of magnitude improvement.

Ultra-stable laser cavities are the core components of today’s most precise measurement instruments. To design and realize an ultra-stable laser cavity, one must suppress all kinds of noise below the desired frequency stability. The thermal noise of the cavity spacer sets a fundamental limit for the possible stability, especially for cavities operating at room temperature. We present a comprehensive numerical study of thermal cavity spacer noise, accounting for all relevant geometrical parameters. Accelerated by a vast amount of simulation data, a neural network is trained to predict spacer noise precisely for a wide range of all relevant cavity parameters. Based on this neural network, we identified design rules to reduce spacer noise by more than 50% by only changing the cavity geometry. Optimizing the cavity geometry and the material combination can achieve a noise reduction of more than two orders of magnitude without the infrastructural effort of a cryogenic environment.

Compact and low-cost opto-biomedical sensing systems today are ubiquitously available for measuring the oxygen saturation in blood. The oxygen saturation is derived by a complex, usually not well defined analytical process from the optical absorption of tissue at different wavelengths. The amount of information, which is originally contained in absorption measurements, is drastically reduced by this circumstance. However, the reliability of the analytical process as well as the influence of external parameters like blood pressures on the experimental uncertainty of such systems are widely unknown. Thus, to explore the experimental uncertainty quantitatively, original experimental data have to be used. In commercial systems, however, these data are usually not accessible. Therefore, test systems with full access to original absorption data are necessary. In this work, we develop and describe a test system consisting of color filters and a charge-coupled device (CCD) image sensor, which has substantial advantages in comparison to usually used systems based on multi-color light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Color filters with well-defined filter functions allow for a higher spectral resolution, and will finally guide the way to multi-spectral analysis of blood absorption measurements with reduced uncertainty.

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) are revolutionizing nanotechnology, with far-reaching applications in telecommunications, molecular sensing, and quantum information. PIC designs rely on mature nanofabrication processes and readily available and optimised photonic components (gratings, splitters, couplers). Hybrid plasmonic elements can enhance PIC functionality (e.g., wavelength-scale polarization rotation, nanoscale optical volumes, and enhanced nonlinearities), but most PIC-compatible designs use single plasmonic elements, with more complex circuits typically requiring ab initio designs. Here we demonstrate a modular approach to post-processes off-the-shelf silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguides into hybrid plasmonic integrated circuits. These consist of a plasmonic rotator and a nanofocusser, which generate the second harmonic frequency of the incoming light. We characterize each component’s performance on the SOI waveguide, experimentally demonstrating intensity enhancements of more than 200 in an inferred mode area of 100 nm2, at a pump wavelength of 1320 nm. This modular approach to plasmonic circuitry makes the applications of this technology more practical., Chip-scale modular components are important for nanophotonic applications. Here, the authors demonstrate post-processing of a silicon-on-insulator waveguide into an integrated hybrid plasmonic circuit, consisting of a plasmonic rotator and a nanofocusser module, which together result in nanoscale nonlinear wavelength conversion.

Spectroscopic polarization measurement and control using channeled spectrum has several unique features and is useful for various spectroscopic instruments. It utilizes the strong dispersion characteristics in polarization retardation of high-order retarders so that the polarization modulation can be made without using mechanical or active elements for polarization modulation. In this presentation, we describe its principle, basic features, and several applications including a spectroscopic ellipsometer and ultrafast rotations of beam profile and polarization.

Using conventional Mueller matrix ellipsometry, the geometries of periodic nanostructures can be easily determined if the measurement fields are not smaller than the illumination spot size. Measurements on individual nanostructures smaller than this can be accounted for by imaging ellipsometry, which allows measuring all 16 Mueller matrix elements for each pixel in the camera of the imaging system. These so-called Mueller matrix images contain additional information about the spatial distribution of the sample’s polarizing properties that are useful in the characterization of individual nanostructures. We built an imaging Mueller matrix ellipsometry system for measurements in the visible regime. Our system allows for the analysis arm, which holds the CCD camera and the polarization state analyser, to be rotated freely around the sample. By this, measurements in reflection and in transmission can be performed at arbitrary angles of incidence between 37.5° and 90°. Additionally, we implemented a reflection mode for 0° angle of incidence. Using this setup, our goal is to characterize the shape of individual nanostructures much smaller than the illumination spot using the additional information from the Mueller matrix images. Thus, we designed and fabricated a sample containing various individual nanostructures with different geometrical features. The structures are of square or circular shape, ranging in size from 5 µm to 50 nm. Additionally, the square structures feature corner rounding with different radii for a transition between circle and square. With these structures, we systematically measure the influence of the shape on the Mueller matrix elements. We also investigate in using Mueller matrix images for the characterization of subwavelength sized features significantly smaller than the resolution limit of our microscope system at about 800 nm. First results show clear distinctions between opposing edges of the nanostructures in off-diagonal Mueller matrix images.

To precisely characterize nanostructures while keeping the advantages of optical measurements, modern methods are still being refined. Plasmonic lenses, which are designable with less computational effort than dielectric metalenses, are promising. Simulations showed that sub-wavelength sized focal spots in arbitrary distances are achievable. We describe our simulations of the lens-sample interaction with plasmonic lenses with working distances up to 1 mm combined with single and periodic nanostructures using finite element method. Scanning the focal spot over the sample, we examine transmission and reflection in the far field, the field-structure interaction in the near field, and the applicability in Mueller ellipsometry.

We present an analytical model for the dynamical self-heating effect in air-cladded optical microring resonators (ORRs). The spatially and time resolved temperature field is calculated by integrating the corresponding boundary value problem of the heat equation. It turns out that the self-heating amplitude is approximately proportional to the total absorbed power and anti-proportional to the thermal conductivity of the cladding material. Further, two-photon absorption plays a major role in the heating process, even for moderate input powers, due to the strong light confinement. Heating times are determined to be in the microsecond range and may limit the response time of ORR devices. The explicit formulas for the temperature fields allow a much faster determination of heating properties compared to elaborate finite element simulations. Thus, our model is predestinated for scanning large parameter spaces. We present such an analytical model for the self-heating effect in ORRs. For this purpose, we solve the heat equation on the ORRs geometrical domain. The heat source is caused by two effects, linear absorption from defect states and quadratic two-photon absorption (TPA). Due to the strong light confinement on resonance, very high light intensities are reachable in the resonator ring and the TPA might become a dominant heat source even for low excitation powers. We utilize insulating Neumann boundary conditions to calculate the temperature increase in the substrate region as a convolution between heat source and the corresponding Greens function. The temperature field in the ring structure is calculated by solving the corresponding eigenvalue problem that arises from a separation ansatz. The result is discussed in terms of maximum self-heating, response time and power dependence for ORRs with very high Q-factors of over 100 000. Finally, we compare the analytical calculations of the self-heating effect with finite element computations.

A method comprising near-field holography with an electron beam lithography-written phase mask was developed herein. Soft X-ray varied-line-spacing gratings with a central groove density greater than 3000 lines mm−1 were fabricated using this method., A fabrication method comprising near-field holography (NFH) with an electron beam lithography (EBL)-written phase mask was developed to fabricate soft X-ray varied-line-spacing gratings (VLSGs). An EBL-written phase mask with an area of 52 mm × 30 mm and a central line density greater than 3000 lines mm−1 was used. The introduction of the EBL-written phase mask substantially simplified the NFH optics for pattern transfer. The characterization of the groove density distribution and diffraction efficiency of the fabricated VLSGs indicates that the EBL–NFH method is feasible and promising for achieving high-accuracy groove density distributions with corresponding image properties. Vertical stray light is suppressed in the soft X-ray spectral range.

This chapter describes the use of lasers for length measurement traceable to the definition of the metre, which is defined today via the speed of light. High-precision and traceable length measurements are especially important for production engineering with a measurement range of up to some ten metres. Today for traceable measurements the use of laser interferometers relying on frequency-stabilized lasers is state-of-the-art. Laser interferometers and grating scales with interferometric readout are also widely used in industrial applications. For machine tools and coordinate measurement machines, normally encoders are used for length measurements, because interferometers are sensitive to refractive index variations, mainly caused by temperature and pressure fluctuations, and more expensive than encoders. Frequency-stabilized lasers of both categories can be found in a list of recommended radiations for the realization of laser wavelength or frequency standards for the realization of the metre.

In this study we present the novel approach of GaN-based high-contrast grating (HCG) mirrors as highly reflective top mirrors in GaN vertical-(external)-cavity surface-emitting lasers [V(E)CSELs]. These mirrors can well be integrated into a conventional process flow for GaN-based VECSEL devices – in contrast to conventional Bragg mirrors. Results of thorough growth experiments performed to reliably fabricate high quality cavity structures with well-defined and fine-tuned optical properties will be reported. The properties of HCG mirrors have been calculated by extensive optical device simulations. Properties of HCG structures have been analyzed experimentally by reflection measurements and results will be discussed with a focus on HCG design, potential material combinations, compatibility with existing process steps in GaN technology and the various ways of integration into VECSEL structures.

With a relative length measurement precision of better than 10−23, gravitational wave interferometers are the most precise instruments that have ever been built. With this enormous sensitivity many noise sources potentially effect gravitational wave detector sensitivity, each of which must be investigated to ensure confidence in design sensitivity. We present calculations of photoelastic noise as well as thermo refractive noise in the beam splitter and the input test masses in Einstein telescope (ET). It turns out that the amplitude of the photoelastic noise in the ET low-frequency detector is about five orders of magnitude below the maximum design sensitivity and five orders of magnitude below that of the ET high-frequency detector, whereas thermo refractive noise impairs the design sensitivity by approximately 20%.

We theoretically investigate the influence of gravity on laser light in a hemispherical optical cavity, operating on Earth. The propagation of light in such a cavity is modeled by a Gaussian beam, affected by the Earth's gravitational field. On laboratory scale, this field is described by the spacetime of homogeneous gravity, known as Rindler spacetime. In that spacetime, the beam is bent downwards and acquires a height dependent phase shift. As a consequence the phase fronts of the laser light differ from those of a usual Gaussian beam. Assuming that the initial beam enters the cavity along its symmetry axis, these gravitational effects cause variations of the beam phase with every cavity round trip. Detailed calculations are performed to investigate how these phase variations depend on the beam parameters and the cavity setup. Moreover, we discuss the implications of our findings for cavity calibration techniques and cavity-based laser stabilization procedures., 10 pages, 6 figures

Staying in control of delicate processes in the evermore emerging field of micro, nano and quantum-technologies requires suitable devices to measure temperature and temperature flows with high thermal and spatial resolution. In this work, we design optical microring resonators (ORRs) made of different materials (silicon, diamond and gallium nitride) and simulate their temperature behavior using several finite-element methods. We predict the resonance frequencies of the designed devices and their temperature-induced shift (16.8 p m / K for diamond, 68.2 p m / K for silicon and 30.4 p m / K for GaN). In addition, the influence of two-photon-absorption (TPA) and the associated self-heating on the accuracy of the temperature measurement is analysed. The results show that owing to the absence of intrinsic TPA-processes self-heating at resonance is less critical in diamond and GaN than in silicon, with the threshold intensity I t h = &alpha, / &beta, &alpha, and &beta, being the linear and quadratic absorption coefficients, respectively.

As known from Einstein's theory of general relativity, the propagation of light in the presence of a massive object is affected by gravity. In this work, we discuss whether the effect of gravitational light bending can be observed in Earth-based experiments, using high-finesse optical cavities. In order to do this, we theoretically investigate the dynamics of electromagnetic waves in the spacetime of a homogeneous gravitational field and give an analytical expression for the resulting modifications to Gaussian beam propagation. This theoretical framework is used to calculate the intensity profile at the output of a Fabry-P\'erot cavity and to estimate the imprints of Earth's gravity on the cavity output signal. In particular, we found that gravity causes an asymmetry of the output intensity profile. Based on that, we discuss a measurement scheme, that could be realized in facilities like the GEO600 gravitational wave detector and the AEI 10 m detector prototype., Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, 1 table

Several sources of noise limit the sensitivity of current gravitational wave detectors. Currently, dominant noise sources include quantum noise and thermal Brownian noise, but future detectors will also be limited by other thermal noise channels. In this paper, we study a thermal noise source which is caused by spatial charge carrier density variations in semiconductor materials. We provide an analytical model for the understanding of charge carrier fluctuations under the presence of screening effects and show that charge carrier noise will not be a limiting noise source for third-generation gravitational wave detectors.

We designed, realized, and characterised an imaging Mueller matrix ellipsometry setup for the pixelwise measurement of the Mueller matrices in microscope images. Our setup is capable of performing measurements in reflection as well as in transmission in a broad range of angles of incidence for wavelengths between 400 nm and 700 nm. We compared measurements of specially designed nanostructured samples with AFM and SEM measurements as well as with numerical simulations using the finite element method.

We report on a method for the characterization of optical absorption in semiconductors at photon energies below the bandgap energy. We use intensity dependent deflection spectroscopy to measure spatially resolved the optical absorption and to separate the occurring absorption mechanisms. To this end, we take advantage of the different intensity scaling of these mechanisms and extract the material parameters by fitting the intensity dependent absorption to a physical model. Our method enables a simple but sufficient determination of crucial optical loss properties (e.g. impurity related absorption and two-photon absorption) in various semiconductor systems, e.g. substrates for optical components or solar cells.

The advent of optical metasurfaces, i.e. carefully designed two-dimensional nanostructures, allows unique control of electromagnetic waves. To unlock the full potential of optical metasurfaces to match even complex optical functionalities, machine learning provides elegant solutions. However, these methods struggle to meet the tight requirements when it comes to metasurface devices for the optical performance, as it is the case, for instance, in applications for high-precision optical metrology. Here, we utilize a tandem neural network framework to render a focusing metamirror with high mean and maximum reflectivity of Rmean = 99.993 % and Rmax = 99.9998 %, respectively, and a minimal phase mismatch of Δϕ = 0.016 % that is comparable to state-of-art dielectric mirrors.

We realized an imaging Mueller matrix microscope for nanostructure characterization. For investigations on nanoform characterization via Mueller matrix images, we measured and simulated Mueller matrix images of specially designed nanostructures. As an approach towards machine learning evaluation in imaging ellipsometry, we calculated Haar-like features of the images and observed a higher sensitivity to subwavelength features in off-diagonal matrix elements compared to microscopy.

Ion traps are a promising platform for the realisation of high-performance quantum computers. To enable the future scalability of these systems, integrated photonic solutions for guiding and manipulating the laser light at chip level are a major step. Such passive optical components offer the great advantage of providing beam radii in the μm range at the location of the ions without increasing the number of bulk optics. Different wavelengths, from UV to NIR, as well as laser beam properties, such as angle or polarisation, are required for different cooling and readout processes of ions. We present simulation results for different optical photonic components, such as grating outcouplers or waveguide splitters and their applications on ion trap chips. Furthermore, we will introduce the experimental setup for the optical characterisation of the fabricated structures.

Grating reflectors are a potential low-noise replacement for amorphous multilayer mirrors. We investigate the influence of polarization and refractive index on Brownian thermal noise of binary grating reflectors using Maxwell's stress tensor. Our results demonstrate that the refractive index of the grating material is a critical parameter for thermal noise in these structures. In contrast to multilayer mirrors, a low coating thickness does not necessarily lead to a low thermal noise amplitude for structures with low refractive index. We find that an improved noise performance of grating reflectors requires materials of refractive index ≳2.5. We present a factorized expression for the thermal noise of grating reflectors made of arbitrary materials by simply scaling the noise amplitude with the related material parameters.

Background In this work, a nanostructured guided-mode resonance filter matrix with high transmission efficiency and narrow bandwidth is demonstrated. The developed nano-filter arrays have various usages, e.g., combined with the CMOS image sensors to realize compact spectrometers for biomedical sensing applications. Methods In order to optimize the filter performance, the spectral responses of filters with different structural parameters are carefully studied based on the variable-controlling method. A quality factor is carried out for quantitative characterization. Results In this case, a high fill factor of 0.9 can strongly suppress sidebands, while buffer layer thickness can be adjusted to mainly control the bandwidth. The transmission peaks shift from 386 nm to 1060 nm with good linearity when periods vary from 220 nm to 720 nm. The incident angle dependence is simulated to be ~ 1.1 nm/degree in ±30° range. The filters are then fabricated and characterized. The results obtained from both simulations and experiments agree well, where the filters with the period of 352 nm exhibit simulated and measured transmission peaks of 564 nm and 536 nm, the FWHM of 13 nm and 17 nm, respectively. In terms of metal material, besides aluminum, silver is also investigated towards optimization of the transmission efficiency. Conclusion The transmission spectra of designed filters have high transmission and low sideband; its peaks cover the whole visible and near infrared range. These characteristics allow them to have the possibility to be integrated into image sensors for spectrometer applications.

A non-invasive optical measurement system based on a broadband light source and color filters has been developed for determining pulse rate and arterial blood oxygen saturation (SaO2). In contrast to classical pulse oximetry using red and infrared LEDs to measure the peripheral capillary oxygen saturation (SpO2), we use color filters in our system. Spectral analysis of human tissue can be easily achieved by combining a tiny color filter matrix and a commercial CMOS/CCD image sensor. During system operation, white LED light illuminates our tissue (e.g., a finger), while a CCD sensor covered by filters detects the light transmitted through that tissue. The CCD sensor is controlled by a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) and a microcontroller. The detected photoplethysmographic (PPG) signal is transferred to a host computer and analyzed with MATLAB. After sensor system calibration, pulse rate and SpO2 can be simply extracted from the PPG signal. The heart rate and SpO2 of different volunteers are then measured simultaneously by commercial pulse oximetry and the proposed sensor system, in which results from both devices show good agreement. To integrate more functions into system, nanostructured color filter matrix containing 15 filters for different wavelengths is designed and fabricated. This filter can be designed to provide transmission peaks over the visible and near-infrared range (i.e., the human tissue optical transparent window) and has a high potential to be fabricated directly on top of pixels of an image sensor.

We report on key signal contributions in photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PDS) of semiconductors at photon energies below the bandgap energy and show how to extract the actual absorption properties from the measurement data. To this end, we establish a rigorous computation scheme for the deflection signal including semi-analytic raytracing to analyze the underlying physical effects. The computation takes into account linear and nonlinear absorption processes affecting the refractive index and thus leading to a deflection of the probe beam. We find that beside the linear mirage effect, nonlinear absorption mechanisms make a substantial contribution to the signal for strongly focussed pump beams and sample materials with high two-photon absorption coefficients. For example, the measured quadratic absorption contribution exceeds 5% at a pump beam intensity of about ${1.3}\times{10^{5}}\;{W}/{cm^{2}}$ in Si and at ${5}\times{10^{4}}\;{W}/{cm^{2}}$ in GaAs. In addition, our method also includes thermal expansion effects as well as spatial gradients of the attenuation properties. We demonstrate that these effects result in an additional deflection contribution which substantially depends on the distance of the photodetector from the readout point. This distance dependent contribution enhances the surface related PDS signal up to two orders of magnitude and may be misinterpreted as surface absorption if not corrected in the analysis of the measurement data. We verify these findings by PDS measurements on crystalline silicon at a wavelength of 1550 nm and provide guidelines how to extract the actual attenuation coefficient from the PDS signal., Comment: 10 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Journal of Applied Physivs

Accurate metrology of nanostructures gains more and more importance and for efficiency reasons optical methods play a significant role here. Unfortunately, conventional optical microscopy is subject to the well-known resolution limit. The necessity to resolve objects smaller than this limit led to the development of superresolution methods which however are barely used in metrology for practical reasons. Non-imaging indirect optical methods like scatterometry and ellipsometry however are not limited by diffraction and are able to determine the critical dimensions of nanostructures. We investigate the application of different approaches for specifically manipulated near-fields in Mueller matrix ellipsometry to achieve an enhanced sensitivity for polarization based sub-wavelength topological information. To this end, we present first numerical simulations of these approaches. To examine the relationship between structural properties and Mueller matrix elements we designed individual structures based on geometrical shapes of varying parameters as well as small arrays. They are realized by lithography as holes in PMMA resist. First, we characterize SEM images of the structures to validate the fabrication process. Numerical simulations of the Mueller matrices of the structures by finite element method are discussed. Results indicate that conventional Mueller matrix ellipsometry alone is unsuitable but the extension to imaging Mueller matrix microscopy is promising for the characterization of sub-wavelength features.

Collinear photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PDS) is a widely used method for the spatially resolved determination of the optical attenuation coefficient. In this work we rigorously model the signal contributions in PDS on semiconductors below the band gap energy. The dependencies of the PDS signal on selected experimental parameters (pump beam intensity, crossing angle, chopper frequency and distance from the pump beam focus) are computed and compared with previous calculation results that are based on simplified assumptions. We find that for high pump beam intensities and sample materials with high two photon absorption coefficients beside the mirage effect nonlinear absorption mechanisms have a strong impact on the signal. Furthermore, we show that angular deflection effects can significantly enhance the PDS signal. For example, the conical refractive index field due to the pump beam divergence leads to an angular deflection at readout points outside the pump beam focus. Considering these additional signal contributions is crucial to determine proper absorption properties.

Brownian thermal noise is a severe limitation for the sensitivity of many optomechanical high-precision measurement systems. To push the sensitivity limit it is essential to quantify how device geometry and material properties affect thermal noise. As an important building block for optomechanical experiments, we present the analytical calculation of Brownian thermal noise of circular clamped reflective membranes in Fabry Perot cavities. To compute the thermal noise, we investigate the influence of the effective membrane position x (compare Fig. 1(a)) to the eigenfrequency of the cavity.

Spatial light modulators (SLMs) manipulate the polarization, amplitude and phase of incident light beams and are used in diverse applications as beam shaping and steering, digital holography and information processing [1]. Currently, most SLMs are based either on liquid crystal or on MEMS systems such as movable mirror arrays. The first ones have high resolution density and pixel size but low time response in the sub-ms range [2]. While the second ones have faster time responses in the order of hundredths of μs [3] and can be even faster by replacing conventional mirrors with high-contrast gratings (HCG) mirrors [4]. In the last years, other approaches based on metasurfaces and HCGs have been proposed as phase modulators by modulating the refractive index by exploiting the electro-optic or thermo-optic effects or by free-carrier injection [5, 6]. We propose a phase modulator also based on HCGs but exploiting the tunable optomechanical response capable of 2π shift variations and time responses in the order of hundreds of nanoseconds, limited by the mechanical resonance frequency.

We present a TE-to-TM hybrid plasmonic nano-focusser which monolithically interfaces with a TE SOI waveguide. Second harmonic generation measurements show a huge intensity enhancement at the 10nm gold apex, in quantitative agreement with simulations.

To circumvent elaborate conventional lithographic methods for realizing metallic nanostructures, it is necessary to develop self-organized nanofabrication methods for suitable template structures and their optical characterization. We demonstrate the potential of ion bombardment with impurity co-deposition to fabricate terraced or quasi-blazed nanostructure templates. Self-organized terraced nanostructures on fused silica were fabricated using A r + ion bombardment with iron impurity co-deposition and subsequent Au shadow deposition. The aspect ratios are enhanced threefold, and the range of nanostructure period variation is significantly increased with respect to that of conventional nanostructures realized by pure ion bombardment. We reveal the key features of the method via atomic force microscopy and optical characterization. Variable-profile quasiperiodic nanostructures with periods of 100–450 nm, heights of 25–180 nm, and blaze angles of 10°–25° were fabricated over an area of 20 × 40 m m 2 , and these exhibited tunable and broadening optical anisotropy across the nanostructured area. Thus, the proposed method is a viable technique for rapid, cost-effective, and deterministic fabrication of variable nanostructure templates for potential optical applications.

Near-field holography (NFH), with its virtues of precise critical dimensions and high throughput, has a great potential for the realization of soft x-ray diffraction gratings. We show that NFH with reflections reduced by the integration of antireflective coatings (ARCs) simplifies the NFH process relative to that of setups using refractive index liquids. Based on the proposed NFH with ARCs, gold-coated laminar gratings were fabricated using NFH and subsequent ion beam etching. The efficiency angular spectrum shows that the stray light of the gratings is reduced one level of magnitude by the suppression of interface reflections during NFH.

We report on a simple method for the characterization of optical absorption in semiconductors at photon energies below the bandgap energy. Therefore, we perform spatially resolved and intensity dependent deflection spectroscopy to measure the local optical absorption. To separate the absorption mechanisms, we take advantage of different intensity scaling of these mechanisms and extract the material parameters by fitting intensity dependent absorption to a physical model. This model takes into account relevant optical absorption processes like linear absorption from defect states, two-photon absorption, and the Franz–Keldysh effect. The method is exemplarily carried out for GaAs, Si, and CdTe. The literature values of the two-photon absorption coefficient are reproduced and the strength of the Franz–Keldysh effect in CdTe is determined for the first time as C FK = [ 8.7 , … , 16.9 ] × 10 13 m − 1 s − 1 / 2.

We investigate a reconfigurable dielectric metasurface merging optomechanical interaction and quasi-bound states in the continuum promising for all-optical light control light. The surface consists of a dimerized high-contrast grating with a compliant bilayer structure. The optical forces induced by a control light field lead to structural deformations changing the optical response. We discuss requirements for the geometry and optical force distribution to enable an efficient optomechanical coupling, which can be exploited to tune reflectivity, phase and polarization of a beam impinging on the metasurface. Numerical results explore some tunable devices as mirrors, saturable output couplers, phase modulators and retarder plates.

Planar plasmonic lenses have attracted a great deal of interest over the last few years for their super-resolution focusing capabilites. These highly compact structures with dimensions of only a few micrometres allow for the focusing of light to sub-wavelength-sized spots with focal lengths reaching into the far-field. This offers opportunities for new methods in nanometrology; for example, applications in microscopic Mueller matrix ellipsometry setups. However, the conventional plasmonic lens is challenging to fabricate. We present a new design for plasmonic lenses, which is called the inverted plasmonic lens, to accommodate the lithographic fabrication process. In this contribution, we used numerical simulations based on the finite element method in combination with particle swarm optimization to determine ideal parameter ranges and tolerances for the design of inverted plasmonic lenses for different wavelengths in the visible and near-infrared domain and focal lengths between 5 µm and 1 mm.

In this work, a novel multispectral sensing system consisting of nanostructured filter matrix and a charge-coupled device (CCD)-based image sensor has been developed to overcome the limitation of the conventional pigment filtered sensors, which are difficult to be fabricated at a microscale and usually showing a pronounced degradation. By designing the filters in guided-mode resonance (GMR) architecture, light transmission efficiencies of ~90% with low sidebands and sharp peaks can be obtained, which are critical characteristics for realizing precise optical measurement systems. To optimize the transmission functions, various materials and structural parameters have been simulated. Electron beam nanolithography is employed in the device fabrication to fabricate pixel-wise independent filter functions. After being characterized in terms of their wavelength filtering capability, the developed GMR filters are then combined with image sensors, particularly for addressing biological applications.

We present a concept of a mirror for the application in high-reflectivity low-noise instruments such as interferometers. The concept is based on an etalon with a metasurface (meta-etalon) on the front and a conventional multilayer stack on the rear surface. The etalon in combination with the metasurface enables a dedicated spatial weighing of the relevant thermal noise processes and by this a substantial reduction of the overall read out thermal noise. We exemplary illustrate the benefit of the proposed etalon for thermal noise in two applications: The test masses of the Einstein Telescope gravitational wave detector and a single-crystalline cavity for laser frequency stabilization. In the Einstein Telescope the thermal noise of the etalon even at room temperature outperforms existing concepts for operation temperatures at 10K. For the laser stabilization cavity, a reduction of the modified Allan deviation of an order of magnitude is predicted., Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 6 tables

We present the calculation of thermal noise in interferometric gravitational-wave detectors due to the thermal fluctuations of the beam splitter (BS). This work makes use of a recently developed method of the analysis of thermal noise in mirrors from first principles, based on the fluctuation dissipation theorem. The evaluation of BS thermal noise is carried out for the two different grav- itational wave observatories, GEO600 and the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (aLIGO). The analysis evaluates thermal noise from both the substrate and the optical reflective and antireflective stacks located on the BS surface. We demonstrate that the fluctuations of both reflecting and anti-reflecting surfaces significantly contribute to the total thermal noise of the BS. The oscillating intensity pattern couples small-scale distortions of the surface to the overall phase readout, and therefore increases the overall thermal noise. In the case of aLIGO, the BS contribution is with $0.3\%$ negligibly small. At a frequency of 500Hz, the BS causes about $10\%$ of GEO600's sensitivity limit. BS noise impairs the feasible sensitivity of the GEO-HF design proposal by about $50\%$.