Interaction of electromagnetic, acoustic, and even gravitational waves with accelerating bodies forms a class of nonstationary time-variant processes. Scattered waves contain intrinsic signatures of motion, which manifest in a broad range of phenomena, including Sagnac interference, and both Doppler and micro-Doppler frequency shifts. Although general relativity is often required to account for motion, instantaneous rest frame approaches are frequently used to describe interactions with slowly accelerating objects. We investigate theoretically and experimentally an interaction regime that is neither relativistic nor adiabatic. The test model considers an accelerating scatterer with a long-lasting relaxation memory. The slow decay rates violate the instantaneous reaction assumption of quasistationarity, introducing non-Markovian contributions to the scattering process. Memory signatures in scattering from a rotating dipole are studied theoretically, showing symmetry breaking of micro-Doppler combs. A quasistationary numeric analysis of scattering in the short-memory limit is proposed and validated experimentally with an example of electromagnetic pulses interacting with a rotating wire.
KEYWORDS: Luminescence, Spectroscopy, Process control, Electromagnetism, Metamaterials, Composites, Biophysics, Quantum optics, Nanostructures, Resonance energy transfer
The control of photoluminescence processes, via the design of composite materials with engineered electromagnetic properties, is of great interest for the development of many application areas ranging from biophysics to quantum optical technologies. Approaches providing broadband enhancements of emission, not limited to resonant nanostructures, are particularly advantageous. We discuss how various photoluminescence processes, including conventional and dipolar-forbidden spontaneous emission, as well as Förster resonance energy transfer, are altered nearby and inside plasmonic hyperbolic metamaterials. They provide a flexible platform for engineering broadband Purcell enhancements due to their peculiar electromagnetic mode structure controlled by the nonlocal response of the metamaterial.
KEYWORDS: Radar, Antennas, Calibration, Network security, Digital signal processing, Fourier transforms, Radar signal processing, Signal processing, Modulation, Receivers
A method for synthesizing any radar signal via post-processing is proposed theoretically and demonstrated experimentally for both pulsed and linear frequency modulated signals. The method does not require transmitting the investigated signal, nor does it require any hardware reconfiguration (such as fully programmable gate arrays), in contrast with ordinary software defined radars. Instead, the method is based on transmitting the ‘stepped frequency continuous wave' signal with a device such as a network analyzer. By obtaining the frequency response in the desired bandwidth (S-parameters), signal-specific digital filters can be applied in order to obtain the response of any other signal. By transforming the filtered frequency response into the time domain, the ordinary processing of such signals can take place in the digital domain. The advantages of different signals can therefore be used by a single optimized chip, simply by swapping its software.
In this talk, full time-domain hydrodynamic description of nonlinear electron dynamics in metallic nanostructures will be presented together with some vivid examples of its applications to harmonic generation on the nanoscale. The robust non-perturbalive numerical model implemented and solved, without any simplification reveals a key contribution to the nonlinear effects defined by the interplay between the topology of the nanostructure and the nonlocal response of the metal at the nanoscale. The quantum pressure term of the Fermionic gas responsible for nonlocal effects in the nonlinear hydrodynamic model leads to the emergence of fractional nonlinear harmonics and results in broadband coherent white-light generation. The investigation of Archimedean spirals, lacking any reflection and rotational symmetries, illuminated by 50 fs pulses, provides the clear signature of 6 nonlinear harmonics, favoring this structure over cylinders, as well as coherent white light generation. The described processes present a novel class of nonlinear phenomena in metallic nanostructures determined by nonlocality of electron response.
The control of spontaneous emission via the design of composite materials with engineered electromagnetic properties is important for the development of new faster and brighter sources of illumination with applications ranging from biophysics to quantum optical technologies. In particular, the fabrication of nanostructures leading to broadband enhancement of emission is of great interest. Hyperbolic plasmonic metamaterials have recently emerged as a very flexible platform for this purpose as they provide a high local density of electromagnetic states available for the radiative relaxation of emitters. This is due to their peculiar mode structure governed by both the structural nonlocal response and the dispersion properties.
Here, we investigate the modification of the spontaneous emission rate and intensity enhancement of emitters located inside a nanorod-based hyperbolic metamaterial. We experimentally show the coupling of the radiated emission to the waveguided mode of a planar hyperbolic metamaterial with finite thickness. The emitters located inside this planar hyperbolic metamaterial waveguide exhibit an almost 50-fold reduction of the decay rate and 3-fold intensity enhancement of the fluorescence coupled to the mode. We also discuss the effect of nanostructuring the nanorod-based metamaterial on the spontaneous emission properties of emitters located inside it, where suitable designs can lead to further enhancement of the radiative rate and improved light extraction of the emission coupled to the high-wavevector modes of the metamaterial to the far-field, useful for the development of efficient and fast free-space light-emitting devices.
Metamaterials concept has been under extensive development over the past two decades and has been proven to be beneficial for a wide range of practical applications in both microwave and optical spectral ranges. In particular, it is commonly used for tailoring light-matter interactions on nanoscale. While many different approaches towards metamaterials fabrication exist, most of them are limited to “top-down” concept, including but not limited to lithographic methods, like photolithography, e-beam and nanoimprint lithography. On the other hand, the “bottom-up” chemical self-assembly techniques offer several distinctive advantages like throughput and cost-effectiveness, allowing large-scale production of composites. Here a novel metamaterial platform, based on mesoporous vaterite particles (further referred to as cargoes) is proposed and demonstrated. Controllable doping of micron and sub-micron scale dielectric hosts with metal nanoparticles enables tuning effective plasma frequency of new composites and, as the result, allows tailoring properties of collective localized plasmon resonances that they support. Furthermore, newly developed fabrication protocols enable introducing active materials (e.g. dyes and colloidal quantum dots) within vaterite cargoes and tailor their emission properties. Introduction of high concentration of active materials into compound particles allows compensating material losses in the medium with gain. Moreover, by coating the surface of the particles with passivating agents, it is possible to achieve long-term stability of such compound cargos in different types of solvents. Both unrestricted three-dimensional motion (compared to two-dimensional trapping of metallic particles) and rotation by circularly polarized trapping beams were demonstrated. Theoretical, numerical and experimental studies of those novel composites with beforehand mentioned properties will be presented. The vaterite-based metamaterial platform paves a way to new fundamental investigations and enables to introduce concepts of ultra-bright controllably floating imaging agents for relevant bio-medical applications.
Fluorescence-based processes are strongly modified by the electromagnetic environment in which the emitters are placed. Hence, the design of nanostructured materials with appropriate electromagnetic properties opens up a new route in the control of, for instance, the spontaneous rate of emission or the energy transfer rate in donor-acceptor pairs. In particular, hyperbolic plasmonic metamaterials have emerged as a very flexible and powerful platform for these applications as they provide a high local density of electromagnetic states due to their peculiar mode structure which is governed by both the structural nonlocal response and the dispersion properties. Here, we will discuss an experimental and theoretical study of the influence of a hyperbolic metamaterial comprised of an array of gold nanorods on the radiative properties of quantum emitters and the energy-transfer processes between them.
Hyperbolic plasmonic metamaterials provide numerous opportunities for designing unusual linear and nonlinear optical properties. Here we report a full vectorial numerical model to study SHG in a plasmonic nanorod metamaterial slab. Our frequency-domain implementation of the hydrodynamic model of the metal permittivity for conduction electrons provided a full description of the nonlinear susceptibility in a broad spectral range. We show that the modal overlap of fundamental and second-harmonic light in the plasmonic metamaterial slab results in the frequency tuneable enhancement of radiated second-harmonic intensity by up to 2 orders of magnitudes for TM- and TE-polarized fundamental light, compared to a smooth Au film under TM-polarised illumination. A double-resonant condition with both the enhancement of fundamental field and the enhanced scattering of the second-harmonic field can be realised at multiple frequencies due to the mode structure of the metamaterial slab. The nanostructured geometry of the Au nanorod metamaterial provides a larger surface area compared to the centrosymmetric crystal lattice of gold, which is needed for exploiting the intrinsic surface nonlinearity of gold. The numerical model allows us to explain experimental investigations on the spectral behaviour and radiation diagram of the second harmonic signal. In the experiments SHG generated under femtosecond excitation with varying wavelength, polarization, and angle of incidence, was characterized in backward and forward directions. We show that the excitation of plasmonic modes in the array can remarkably enhance the nonlinear response of the system, as predicted by the model. The results open up wide ranging possibilities to design tuneable frequency-doubling metamaterial with the goal to overcome limitations associated with classical phase matching conditions in thick nonlinear crystals.
KEYWORDS: Metamaterials, Plasmonics, Fluorescence resonance energy transfer, Electromagnetism, Resonance energy transfer, Luminescence, Energy transfer, Molecules, Molecular energy transfer, Biosensing
The control of the Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) rate between molecules has recently received a lot of interest, opening opportunities in the development of sources of incoherent illumination, photovoltaics and biosensing applications. The design of nanostructured materials with appropriate electromagnetic properties, particularly with the engineered local density of electromagnetic states (LDOS), allows the enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate of emitters in their vicinity. However, the question of the influence of the LDOS on the energy transfer rate between emitters remains controversial. To date, several contradicting theoretical and experimental studies involving emitters on metallic surfaces and plasmonic metamaterials as well as in optical cavities and plasmonic antennas have been reported. In this work we study the influence of the LDOS on the energy transfer between donor-acceptor pairs placed inside the anisotropic metamaterial. The study of the emission kinetics of both the donor and the acceptor allow us to experimentally compare FRET efficiencies in different electromagnetic environments including dielectric and plasmonic substrates as well as metamaterials.
Plasmonic metamaterial composites are often considered to be promising building blocks for a number of applications that include subwavelength light manipulation, imaging, and quantum optics engineering. These applications often rely on effective medium response of metamaterial composites and require metamaterial to operate in exotic (hyperbolic, or epsilon-near-zero) regimes. However, the behaviour of metamaterials is often different from the predictions of effective medium. In this work we aim to understand the implications of composite nature of metamaterials on their optical properties. Plasmonic nanowire metamaterials are a convenient metamaterial platform that is capable of realization of ENZ, hyperbolic, and elliptic responses depending on light frequency and metamaterial geometry. In this work we show that the response of metamaterial in elliptical regime may be strongly affected by the additional electromagnetic wave that represents collective excitation of cylindrical surface plasmons in nanowire arrays. We present an analytical description of optical properties of additional wave and analyse the effect of this mode on quantum emitters inside nanorod metamaterials.
We will present the experimental and theoretical studies of the photonic spin-orbit coupling effects facilitated by a nanoparticle near a planar surface. Due to spin-orbit coupling, circularly polarized light of opposite handedness may take different trajectories when interacting with such a system, e.g. impinging on a polarizable particle placed above a metallic surface supporting surface plasmon polaritons or other guided modes. The transverse spin carried by surface plasmons is intimately linked to the polarisation of light after their scattering on nanostructures. Circular polarizations of opposite handedness are radiated into mirror-symmetric directions, dependent on the surface plasmon propagation direction. This spin-orbit coupling effect is an optical analogue of the inverse spin Hall effect and has important implications for optical forces, optical information processing, quantum optical technology and topological surface metrology.
Controlling photonic processes on length scales below the diffraction limit requires structural elements with dimensions much smaller than the wavelength. Recently, novel plasmonic metamaterial has been developed based on arrays of aligned plasmonic nanorods which can be designed to exhibit hyperbolic dispersion or epsilon-near-zero behaviour. This metamaterial provides a flexible platform with tuneable optical properties across the visible and telecom spectral range. Such metamaterials can be used instead of conventional plasmonic metals for designing plasmonic waveguides, plasmonic crystals, label-free bio- and chemo-sensors, for development nonlinear plasmonic structures with the enhanced nonlinearities, and controlling emitters. In this talk, we will overview fundamentals and applications of plasmonic nanorod metamaterial for designing new types of nanostructured plasmonic platforms, bio- and chemical sensing components, and nonlinear optical devices.
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