Molecular overlap with optical near-fields based on plasmonic nanolithography for ultrasensitive label-free detection by light-matter colocalization

Nanoslot metasurface design and characterization for enhanced organic light-emitting diodes

We investigate bottom-emitting organic light-emitting diodes (B-OLEDs) integrated with metasurface (MS) to analyze the effect of the structural parameters on the output performance. The performance of the MS-integrated B-OLED (MIB-OLED) is evaluated by out-coupling efficiency (OCE) and reflection of the ambient light, while attention is paid mainly to dielectric capping and metal structure of MS that may influence excitation of surface plasmon (SP). The results suggest that layer thicknesses affect the performance by as much as 10% for the OCE and up to 32% for reflectance. The OCE is in general weakly affected by the structural parameters of MS. In contrast, the reflectance characteristics are found to be dominated by localized SP that is largely determined by the length and the width of a unit slot of MS. An optimization factor introduced to evaluate the performance based on out-coupling power to the radiation mode and reflectance of MIB-OLEDs confirms that integration with MS improves performance by 16% over conventional planar structure. In particular, MIB-OLED is found to enhance OCE by 51% with Lambertian-like pattern. Enhanced performance is experimentally confirmed. The findings provide insights on how to optimize the MS structure to produce MIB-OLEDs with enhanced out-coupled power and contrast ratio.

Superlocalized Three-Dimensional Live Imaging of Mitochondrial Dynamics in Neurons Using Plasmonic Nanohole Arrays

We investigated the transport of neuronal mitochondria using superlocalized near-fields with plasmonic nanohole arrays (PNAs). Compared to traditional imaging techniques, PNAs create a massive array of superlocalized light beams and allow 3D mitochondrial dynamics to be sampled and extracted almost in real time. In this work, mitochondrial fluorescence excited by the PNAs was captured by an optical microscope using dual objective lenses, which produced superlocalized dynamics while minimizing light scattering by the plasmonic substrate. It was found that mitochondria move with an average velocity 0.33 ± 0.26 μm/s, a significant part of which, by almost 50%, was contributed by the movement along the depth axis ( z-axis). Mitochondrial positions were acquired with superlocalized precision (σ _x = 5.7 nm and σ _y = 11.8 nm) in the lateral plane and σ _z = 78.7 nm in the z-axis, which presents an enhancement by 12.7-fold in resolution compared to confocal fluorescence microscopy. The approach is expected to serve as a way to provide 3D information on molecular dynamics in real time.

Facile fabrication of configuration controllable self-assembled Al nanostructures as UV SERS substrates

The resonantly enhanced near-surface electromagnetic field of Al nanostructures (NSs) excited with UV light offers an effective and precise approach to obtain vibration information in complex mixtures up to a single-molecule magnitude. In this work, we propose a facile, cost-effective and large-scale way to fabricate self-assembled Al NSs with systematically controllable configuration and size for the preparation of SERS substrates. The stalagmite-shaped Al nanoparticles (NPs) are directly utilized based on the Volmer-Weber model and drastically develop as a function of the annealing temperature with tunable optical properties, resulting in a maximum enhancement factor of the vibrational Raman signal from adenine molecules up to 3.49 × 10⁷. With a variation of the deposition thickness at an identical temperature, the self-assembled Al NSs sensitively evolve from stalagmite-shaped NPs to worm-like nano-mounds with increased light consumption induced by scattering, which inherently leads to a noticeable reduction in the EF due to the reduced plasmon coupling between NSs with the sparse distribution. The enhancement effect of the SERS substrates is theoretically discussed with the FDTD simulation, providing an instructive reference for promising applications in the bio-sensing technique.

Plasmonics-Nanofluidics Hydrid Metamaterial: An Ultrasensitive Platform for Infrared Absorption Spectroscopy and Quantitative Measurement of Molecules

One of the most attractive potentials of plasmonic metamaterials is the amplification of intrinsically weak signals such as molecular infrared absorption or Raman scattering for detection applications. This effect, however, is only effective when target molecules are located at the enhanced electromagnetic field of the plasmonic structures (i.e., hot-spots). It is thus of significance to control the spatial overlapping of molecules and hot-spots, yet it is a long-standing challenge, since it involves the handling of molecules in nanoscale spaces. Here a metamaterial consisting of a nanofluidic channel with a depth of several tens of nanometers sandwiched between plasmonic resonators and a metal film enables the controllable delivery of small molecules into the most enhanced field arising from the quadrupole mode of the structures, forming a plasmon-molecular coupled system. It offers an ultrasensitive platform for detection of IR absorption and molecular sensing. Notably, the precise handling of molecules in a fixed and ultrasmall (10-100 nm) gap also addressed some critical issues in IR spectroscopy such as quantitative measurement and measurement in aqueous solution. Moreover, a drastic change in the reflectance characteristic resulting from the strong coupling between molecules and plasmonic structures indicates that molecules can also be utilized as triggers for actively switching the optical property of metamaterials.