Fabrication of Large Area Fishnet Optical Metamaterial Structures Operational at Near-IR Wavelengths

Artificial Structural Color Pixels: A Review

Inspired by natural photonic structures (Morpho butterfly, for instance), researchers have demonstrated varying artificial color display devices using different designs. Photonic-crystal/plasmonic color filters have drawn increasing attention most recently. In this review article, we show the developing trend of artificial structural color pixels from photonic crystals to plasmonic nanostructures. Such devices normally utilize the distinctive optical features of photonic/plasmon resonance, resulting in high compatibility with current display and imaging technologies. Moreover, dynamical color filtering devices are highly desirable because tunable optical components are critical for developing new optical platforms which can be integrated or combined with other existing imaging and display techniques. Thus, extensive promising potential applications have been triggered and enabled including more abundant functionalities in integrated optics and nanophotonics.

Liquid-Crystal-Enabled Active Plasmonics: A Review

Liquid crystals are a promising candidate for development of active plasmonics due to their large birefringence, low driving threshold, and versatile driving methods. We review recent progress on the interdisciplinary research field of liquid crystal based plasmonics. The research scope of this field is to build the next generation of reconfigurable plasmonic devices by combining liquid crystals with plasmonic nanostructures. Various active plasmonic devices, such as switches, modulators, color filters, absorbers, have been demonstrated. This review is structured to cover active plasmonic devices from two aspects: functionalities and driven methods. We hope this review would provide basic knowledge for a new researcher to get familiar with the field, and serve as a reference for experienced researchers to keep up the current research trends.

Large-area flexible 3D optical negative index metamaterial formed by nanotransfer printing

Negative-index metamaterials (NIMs) are engineered structures with optical properties that cannot be obtained in naturally occurring materials. Recent work has demonstrated that focused ion beam and layer-by-layer electron-beam lithography can be used to pattern the necessary nanoscale features over small areas (hundreds of µm(2)) for metamaterials with three-dimensional layouts and interesting characteristics, including negative-index behaviour in the optical regime. A key challenge is in the fabrication of such three-dimensional NIMs with sizes and at throughputs necessary for many realistic applications (including lenses, resonators and other photonic components). We report a simple printing approach capable of forming large-area, high-quality NIMs with three-dimensional, multilayer formats. Here, a silicon wafer with deep, nanoscale patterns of surface relief serves as a reusable stamp. Blanket deposition of alternating layers of silver and magnesium fluoride onto such a stamp represents a process for 'inking' it with thick, multilayer assemblies. Transfer printing this ink material onto rigid or flexible substrates completes the fabrication in a high-throughput manner. Experimental measurements and simulation results show that macroscale, three-dimensional NIMs (>75 cm(2)) nano-manufactured in this way exhibit a strong, negative index of refraction in the near-infrared spectral range, with excellent figures of merit.