Natural porous systems, such as soil, membranes, and biological tissues comprise disordered structures characterized by dead-end pores connected to a network of percolating channels. The release and dispersion of particles, solutes, and microorganisms from such features is key for a broad range of environmental and medical applications including soil remediation, filtration and drug delivery. Yet, owing to the stagnant and opaque nature of these disordered systems, the role of microscopic structure and flow on the dispersion of particles and solutes remains poorly understood. Here, we use a microfluidic model system that features a pore structure characterized by distributed dead-ends to determine how particles are transported, retained and dispersed. We observe strong tailing of arrival time distributions at the outlet of the medium characterized by power-law decay with an exponent of 2/3. Using numerical simulations and an analytical model, we link this behavior to particles initially located within dead-end pores, and explain the tailing exponent with a hopping across and rolling along the streamlines of vortices within dead-end pores. We quantify such anomalous dispersal by a stochastic model that predicts the full evolution of arrival times. Our results demonstrate how microscopic flow structures can impact macroscopic particle transport.

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We demonstrate a simple self-assembly method based on solid state dewetting of ultra-thin silicon films and germanium deposition for the fabrication of efficient anti reflection coatings on silicon for light trapping. Via solid state dewetting of ultra-thin silicon on insulator and epitaxial deposition of Ge we fabricate SiGe islands with a high surface density, randomly positioned and broadly varied in size. This allows to reduce the reflectance to low values in a broad spectral range (from 500 nm to 2500 nm) and a broad angle (up to 55 degrees) and to trap within the wafer a large portion of the impinging light (∼40%) also below the band-gap, where the Si substrate is non-absorbing. Theoretical simulations agree with the experimental results showing that the efficient light coupling into the substrate mediated by Mie resonances formed within the SiGe islands. This lithography-free method can be implemented on arbitrarily thick or thin SiO2 layers and its duration only depends on the sample thickness and on the annealing temperature.

Large-scale, defect-free, micro- and nano-circuits with controlled inter-connections represent the nexus between electronic and photonic components. However, their fabrication over large scales often requires demanding procedures that are hardly scalable. Here we synthesize arrays of parallel ultra-long (up to 0.75 mm), monocrystalline, silicon-based nano-wires and complex, connected circuits exploiting low-resolution etching and annealing of thin silicon films on insulator. Phase field simulations reveal that crystal faceting and stabilization of the wires against breaking is due to surface energy anisotropy. Wires splitting, inter-connections and direction are independently managed by engineering the dewetting fronts and exploiting the spontaneous formation of kinks. Finally, we fabricate field-effect transistors with state-of-the-art trans-conductance and electron mobility. Beyond the first experimental evidence of controlled dewetting of patches featuring a record aspect ratio of 1/60000 and self-assembled mm long nano-wires, our method constitutes a distinct and promising approach for the deterministic implementation of atomically-smooth, mono-crystalline electronic and photonic circuits.

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We use low-resolution optical lithography joined with solid state dewetting of crystalline, ultra-thin silicon on insulator (c-UT-SOI) to form monocrystalline, atomically smooth, silicon-based Mie resonators in well-controlled large periodic arrays. The dewetted islands have a typical size in the 100 nm range, about one order of magnitude smaller than the etching resolution. Exploiting a 2 µm thick SiO2 layer separating the islands and the underlying bulk silicon wafer, we combine the resonant modes of the antennas with the etalon effect. This approach sets the resonance spectral position and improves the structural colorization and the contrast between scattering maxima and minima of individual resonant antennas. Our results demonstrate that templated dewetting enables the formation of defect-free, faceted islands that are much smaller than the nominal etching resolution and that an appropriate engineering of the substrate improves their scattering properties. These results are relevant to applications in spectral filtering, structural color and beam steering with all-dielectric photonic devices.

All-dielectric photonics is a rapidly developing field of optics and material science. The main interest at visible and near-infrared frequencies is light management using high-refractive-index Mie-resonant dielectric particles. Most work in this area of research focuses on exploiting Sibased particles. Here, we study monocrystalline Mie-resonant particles made of Ge-rich SiGe alloys with refractive index higher than that of Si. These islands are formed via solid state dewetting of SiGe flat layers by using two different processes: (i) dewetting of monocrystalline SiGe layers (60%-80% Ge content) obtained via Ge condensation of SiGe on silicon on insulator; and (ii) dewetting of a SiGe layer deposited via molecular beam epitaxy on silicon on insulator and ex situ Ge condensation, forming a Ge-rich shell surrounding a SiGe-core. Using high-spatial-resolution Raman microscopy we monitor Ge content x and strain ò of flat layers and SiGe-islands. We observe strain relaxation associated with formation of trading dislocations in the SiGe islands compared to the starting SiGe layers, as confirmed by TEM images. For initial high Ge concentration in the flat layers, the corresponding Ge content in the dewetted islands is lower, owing to diffusion of Si atoms from Si or SiO 2 into SiGe islands. The Ge content also varies from particle to particle on the same sample. Size and shape of the dewetted particles depend on the fabrication process: thicker initial SiGe layers lead to larger particles. Samples with narrow island size distribution display rather sharp Mie resonances in the 1000-2500 nm spectral range. Larger islands display Mie resonances at longer wavelength.Positions of the resonances are in agreement with the theoretical calculations in the discrete dipole approximation.

All-dielectric sub-micrometric particles have been successfully exploited for light management in a plethora of applications at visible and near-infrared frequencies. However, the investigation of the intricacies of the Mie resonances at the sub-wavelength scale has been hampered by the limitations of conventional near-field methods. In this paper, we address the spatial and spectral mapping of multipolar modes of a Si island by hyper-spectral imaging. The simultaneous detection of several resonant modes allows us to clarify the role of the substrate and the incidence angle of the impinging light, highlighting spectral splitting of the quadrupolar mode and resulting in different spatial features of the field intensity. We explore theoretically and experimentally such spatial features. Details as small as 200 nm can be detected and agree with simulations based on the finite difference time domain method. Our results are relevant to near-field imaging of dielectric structures, the comprehension of the resonant features of sub-micrometric Mie antennas, beam steering, and the resonant coupling with light emitters. Our analysis suggests a novel approach to control the absorption of a single emitter in the framework of surface enhanced absorption or stimulated emission applications.