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Special Issue on Recent Developments and Applications of Plasmonics
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ACS Photonics

Cite this: ACS Photonics 2018, 5, 7, 2538–2540
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https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.8b00808
Published July 18, 2018

Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society. This publication is available under these Terms of Use.

This publication is licensed for personal use by The American Chemical Society.

Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society

SPECIAL ISSUE

This article is part of the Recent Developments and Applications of Plasmonics special issue.

Introduction to SPP8

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Surface plasmons are coherent oscillations of delocalized electrons near the interface of two materials where the dielectric function undergoes a sign change in its real part across the interface. Associated with the surface plasmons are the highly enhanced optical fields that are typically confined near the interface at the nanometric scales. With the promise to achieve strong light–matter interaction, such intense optical fields are largely responsible for the acute interest in their properties and applications as well as the vigorous pursuit of various plasmonic materials and nanostructures made of metals or alternatives. The case can be made that the branch of nanophotonics that explores properties of surface plasmons has become the hottest area in the recent decade. SPP8, the Eighth International Conference on Surface Plasmon Photonics, is a part of independent series that takes place biennially. Since its beginning in 2001 in Obernai, France, this series has quickly gained its prominence in the field and is now widely regarded as the premier platform for research professionals to exchange their latest results, ideas, and perspectives in the field. The topics cut across nearly all aspects of optical science and engineering, including optoelectronics, nanotechnology, energy, and photochemistry applications and nanofabrication. SPP8, the 2017 event, held during May 22–26 in Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, was chaired by Professor Din Ping Tsai, with the theme dedicated to “Applications of Plasmonics: Lighting the future for better life”.
SPP8 brought together over 400 participants, representing 171 institutions from 29 countries around the globe. This five-day event was organized into 7 short courses, 5 plenaries, 3 parallel oral sessions consisting of 53 invited and 86 contributed talks, in addition to 232 poster presentations and 3 special information sessions from publishers and a funding agency.

About the Special Issue

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The papers selected among the best conference presentations for this special issue have gone through the same rigorous peer-review process established by this journal as its regular papers in order to meet its standards. These papers cover some of the hottest topics of current plasmonic research.

Plasmonic Hot Electrons

Plasmons at metal interfaces can be absorbed to create hot electrons that have very high kinetic energies to overcome a potential barrier necessary to break an interface state. Such an effect can potentially be used for applications in photocatalysis, solar energy harvesting, and photodetection. Liu et al. report a fundamental study of the relaxation of hot electrons toward equilibrium under a pulsed excitation of plasmons, taking into account of electron–electron, electron–phonon, and electron–photon interactions. (1) Ho et al. demonstrate photodetection using plasmonic hot electrons in a plasmonic channel-coupled nanogap structure where the barrier height of the metal–semiconductor junction can be reduced by the plasmons excited by TE-polarized light, but not TM-polarized light, causing a large contrast in electrical response between the two polarized irradiations. (2)

Optical Metasurfaces

Optical metasurfaces typically constructed with subwavelength building blocks that are artificially arranged in 2D configurations have been extensively explored in recent years for their exotic electromagnetic properties. There are three papers devoted to this topic. The first is a demonstration of a visible polarimetry consisting of six plasmonic metasurface chips that are integrated together and made of aluminum nanoantennas. (3) The second is a dielectric metasurface made of amorphous silicon nanoantenna arrays capable of dramatically enhancing optical absorption by overlapping their electric and magnetic dipole resonances. (4) The third work takes on the challenge of achieving tunable metasurfaces by employing epitaxially grown nanostructures of vanadium dioxide, a phase-transition material, without the complication of top-down nanolithographic fabrication. (5) Such a tunable metasurface can modulate transmission across all telecom wavelength bands.

Subwavelength Imaging

The phenomenon of subwavelength confinement of surface plasmons is a natural and convenient feature that can be explored to enable super-resolution microscopy imaging. The work published by Lee et al. is a realization of a 4 in. wafer-scale spherical hyperlens array for biological imaging application that achieved a resolution of 151 nm. (6) Another work has achieved subwavelength resolution of 75 nm in stimulated emission depletion microscopy using gold nanoparticles coated with doped silica. (7)

Light Absorption

One of the desired features of plasmonic structures is their ability to enhance optical absorption that finds applications in high-resolution and high-sensitivity optical techniques. Kamakura et al. examine the surface-enhanced infrared absorption using a simple periodic array of either indium tin oxide (ITO) or gold discs that support plasmonic–photonic hybrid mode. (8) Anopchenko et al. explore nanolayer stacks of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) ITO to achieve perfect absorption in the wavelength range of 600 to 2000 nm. (9)

Plasmonic Nanolaser

The small footprint of nanolasers allows for fast modulation and on-chip integration for optical computing. The strong optical fields created by such a tiny laser could lead to enhancement of optical processes such as nonlinear optics and Raman scattering. Cheng et al. demonstrated a hybrid nanolaser made of ZnO nanowire on aluminum grating at 373 nm wavelength. (10)

Aluminum Plasmonics

Gold and silver have been the plasmonic metals of choice in vast majority of literatures published on plasmonics. But, owing to their strong interband absorption, applications in UV and much of visible range are prohibited. Aluminum is an attractive alternative that is low cost and abundant in nature, in addition to ease of processing and fabrication. The work by Cheng et al. examines the aluminum platform as a viable plasmonic metal in UV and visible spectral regions. (11) Another applies aluminum on a metasurface for an on-chip demonstration of a polarimeter, covering the entire visible spectrum. (3) A third uses aluminum grating to demonstrate a hybrid nanolaser made of ZnO nanowire at 373 nm wavelength. (10)

Plasmon Multipoles

Metallic nanosphere is the mostly commonly employed plasmonic structure because it can be treated simply in theory due to the high degree of symmetry and is produced easily in large volume based on colloidal synthesis. Such a highly symmetric structure supports energy degenerate multipoles that cannot be resolved with conventional spectroscopy. Using cathodoluminescence in conjunction with scanning transmission electron microscopy, Thollar et al. were able to map the optical field distribution and radiation pattern of these degenerate multipoles associated with a silver sphere. (12)

Plasmon-Enhanced EIT

Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a quantum interference effect that has potential applications in storage of light, nonlinear optics, lasing without inversion, and quantum memory among others. Such an effect is observed in an integrated quantum plasmonic device that supports the coupling of plasmons excited by a metal thin-film coated prism with atomic vapor of rubidium at the nanoscale. (13)

Alternative Plasmonic Materials

Doped semiconductors with lower ohmic losses have been proposed as alternatives to replace noble metals with higher losses as plasmonic materials in mid to far-infrared. Hsieh et al. has conducted a comparative study and concluded that noble metals actually hold advantage over doped semiconductors in terms of optical field enhancement in infrared. But doped semiconductors might possess other benefits such as tunability, higher melting points, affordability, and compatibility with existing technology. (14)
The above topics represent a small cross-section of modern plasmonic research presented at the SPP8 conference and serves as a benchmark for this rapidly evolving field.

Author Information

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  • Corresponding Author
  • Authors
    • Yoshimasa KawataResearch Institute of Electronics, Shizuoka University, Johoku, Naka, Hamamatsu, 432-8011, Japan
    • Greg SunDepartment of Engineering, University of Massachusetts−Boston, Boston, Massachusetts 02125, United StatesOrcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-8001-5020
    • Anatoly ZayatsDepartment of Physics, King’s College London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom
  • Notes
    Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS.

References

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This article references 14 other publications.

  1. 1
    Liu, J. G.; Zhang, H.; Link, S.; Nordlander, P. Relaxation of Plasmon-Induced Hot Carriers. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00881
  2. 2
    Ho, Y.-L.; Tai, Y.-H.; Clark, J. K.; Wang, Z.; Wei, P.-K.; Delaunay, J.-J. Plasmonic Hot-Carriers in Channel-Coupled Nanogap Structure for Metal-Semiconductor Barrier Modulation and Spectral-Selective Plasmonic Monitoring. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01307
  3. 3
    Wu, P. C.; Chen, J.-W.; Yin, C.-W.; Lai, Y.-C.; Chung, T. L.; Liao, C. Y.; Chen, B. H.; Lee, K.-W.; Chuang, C.-J.; Wang, C.-M.; Tsai, D. P. Visible Metasurfaces for On-Chip Polarimetry. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01527
  4. 4
    Yang, C.-Y.; Yang, J.-H.; Yang, Z.-Y.; Zhou, Z.-X.; Sun, M.-G.; Babicheva, V. E.; Chen, K.-P. Nonradiating Silicon Nanoantenna Metasurfaces as Narrowband Absorbers. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01186
  5. 5
    Ligmajer, F.; Kejík, L.; Tiwari, U.; Qiu, M.; Nag, J.; Konečný, M.; Šikola, T.; Jin, W.; Haglund, R. F.; Appavoo, K.; Lei, D. Y. Epitaxial VO2 Nanostructures: A Route to Large-Scale, Switchable Dielectric Metasurfaces,. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01384
  6. 6
    Lee, D.; Kim, Y. D.; Kim, M.; So, S.; Choi, H.-J.; Mun, J.; Nguyen, D. M.; Badloe, T.; Ok, J. G.; Kim, K.; Lee, H.; Rho, J. Realization of Wafer-Scale Hyperlens Device for Sub-diffractional Biomolecular Imaging. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01182
  7. 7
    Urban, N. T.; Foreman, M. R.; Hell, S. W.; Sivan, Y. Nanoparticle-Assisted STED Nanoscopy with Gold Nanospheres. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00833
  8. 8
    Kamakura, R.; Takeishi, T.; Murai, S.; Fujita, K.; Tanaka, K. Surface-Enhanced Infrared Absorption for the Periodic Array of Indium Tin Oxide and Gold Microdiscs: Effect of in-Plane Light Diffraction. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01265
  9. 9
    Anopchenko, A.; Tao, L.; Arndt, C.; Lee, H. W. H. Field-Effect Tunable and Broadband Epsilon-Near-Zero Perfect Absorbers with Deep Subwavelength Thickness. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01373
  10. 10
    Cheng, P.-J.; Huang, Z.-T.; Li, J.-H.; Chou, B.-T.; Chou, Y.-H.; Lo, W.-C.; Chen, K.-P.; Lu, T.-C.; Lin, T.-R. High-Performance Plasmonic Nanolasers with a Nanotrench Defect Cavity for Sensing Applications. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.8b00337
  11. 11
    Cheng, C.-W.; Liao, Y.-J.; Liu, C.-Y.; Wu, B.-H.; Raja, S. S.; Wang, C.-Y.; Li, X.; Shih, C.-K.; Chen, L.-J.; Gwo, S. Epitaxial Aluminum-on-Sapphire Films as a Plasmonic Material Platform for Ultraviolet and Full Visible Spectral Regions. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01366
  12. 12
    Thollar, Z.; Wadell, C.; Matsukata, T.; Yamamoto, N.; Sannomiya, T. Three-Dimensional Multipole Rotation in Spherical Silver Nanoparticles Observed by Cathodoluminescence. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01293
  13. 13
    Talker, E.; Arora, P.; Barash, Y.; Stern, L.; Levy, U. Plasmonic Enhanced EIT and Velocity Selective Optical Pumping Measurements with Atomic Vapor. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01284
  14. 14
    Hsieh, W. T.; Wu, P. C.; Khurgin, J. B.; Tsai, D. P.; Liu, N.; Sun, G. Comparative Analysis of Metals and Alternative Infrared Plasmonic Materials. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01166

Cited By

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This article is cited by 2 publications.

  1. M. Raynaud, A. Héron, J.-C. Adam. Excitation of surface plasma waves and fast electron generation in relativistic laser–plasma interaction. Scientific Reports 2020, 10 (1) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70221-9
  2. Priyanka Verma, Yasutaka Kuwahara, Kohsuke Mori, Hiromi Yamashita. Design of Silver-Based Controlled Nanostructures for Plasmonic Catalysis under Visible Light Irradiation. Bulletin of the Chemical Society of Japan 2019, 92 (1) , 19-29. https://doi.org/10.1246/bcsj.20180244

ACS Photonics

Cite this: ACS Photonics 2018, 5, 7, 2538–2540
Click to copy citationCitation copied!
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.8b00808
Published July 18, 2018

Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society. This publication is available under these Terms of Use.

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  • References


    This article references 14 other publications.

    1. 1
      Liu, J. G.; Zhang, H.; Link, S.; Nordlander, P. Relaxation of Plasmon-Induced Hot Carriers. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00881
    2. 2
      Ho, Y.-L.; Tai, Y.-H.; Clark, J. K.; Wang, Z.; Wei, P.-K.; Delaunay, J.-J. Plasmonic Hot-Carriers in Channel-Coupled Nanogap Structure for Metal-Semiconductor Barrier Modulation and Spectral-Selective Plasmonic Monitoring. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01307
    3. 3
      Wu, P. C.; Chen, J.-W.; Yin, C.-W.; Lai, Y.-C.; Chung, T. L.; Liao, C. Y.; Chen, B. H.; Lee, K.-W.; Chuang, C.-J.; Wang, C.-M.; Tsai, D. P. Visible Metasurfaces for On-Chip Polarimetry. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01527
    4. 4
      Yang, C.-Y.; Yang, J.-H.; Yang, Z.-Y.; Zhou, Z.-X.; Sun, M.-G.; Babicheva, V. E.; Chen, K.-P. Nonradiating Silicon Nanoantenna Metasurfaces as Narrowband Absorbers. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01186
    5. 5
      Ligmajer, F.; Kejík, L.; Tiwari, U.; Qiu, M.; Nag, J.; Konečný, M.; Šikola, T.; Jin, W.; Haglund, R. F.; Appavoo, K.; Lei, D. Y. Epitaxial VO2 Nanostructures: A Route to Large-Scale, Switchable Dielectric Metasurfaces,. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01384
    6. 6
      Lee, D.; Kim, Y. D.; Kim, M.; So, S.; Choi, H.-J.; Mun, J.; Nguyen, D. M.; Badloe, T.; Ok, J. G.; Kim, K.; Lee, H.; Rho, J. Realization of Wafer-Scale Hyperlens Device for Sub-diffractional Biomolecular Imaging. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01182
    7. 7
      Urban, N. T.; Foreman, M. R.; Hell, S. W.; Sivan, Y. Nanoparticle-Assisted STED Nanoscopy with Gold Nanospheres. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b00833
    8. 8
      Kamakura, R.; Takeishi, T.; Murai, S.; Fujita, K.; Tanaka, K. Surface-Enhanced Infrared Absorption for the Periodic Array of Indium Tin Oxide and Gold Microdiscs: Effect of in-Plane Light Diffraction. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01265
    9. 9
      Anopchenko, A.; Tao, L.; Arndt, C.; Lee, H. W. H. Field-Effect Tunable and Broadband Epsilon-Near-Zero Perfect Absorbers with Deep Subwavelength Thickness. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01373
    10. 10
      Cheng, P.-J.; Huang, Z.-T.; Li, J.-H.; Chou, B.-T.; Chou, Y.-H.; Lo, W.-C.; Chen, K.-P.; Lu, T.-C.; Lin, T.-R. High-Performance Plasmonic Nanolasers with a Nanotrench Defect Cavity for Sensing Applications. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.8b00337
    11. 11
      Cheng, C.-W.; Liao, Y.-J.; Liu, C.-Y.; Wu, B.-H.; Raja, S. S.; Wang, C.-Y.; Li, X.; Shih, C.-K.; Chen, L.-J.; Gwo, S. Epitaxial Aluminum-on-Sapphire Films as a Plasmonic Material Platform for Ultraviolet and Full Visible Spectral Regions. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01366
    12. 12
      Thollar, Z.; Wadell, C.; Matsukata, T.; Yamamoto, N.; Sannomiya, T. Three-Dimensional Multipole Rotation in Spherical Silver Nanoparticles Observed by Cathodoluminescence. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01293
    13. 13
      Talker, E.; Arora, P.; Barash, Y.; Stern, L.; Levy, U. Plasmonic Enhanced EIT and Velocity Selective Optical Pumping Measurements with Atomic Vapor. ACS Photonics 2018,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01284
    14. 14
      Hsieh, W. T.; Wu, P. C.; Khurgin, J. B.; Tsai, D. P.; Liu, N.; Sun, G. Comparative Analysis of Metals and Alternative Infrared Plasmonic Materials. ACS Photonics 2017,  DOI: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01166