Bridging the gap between ultrashort pulsed optical waves and terahertz (THz) waves, the THz photoconductive antenna (PCA) is a major constituent for the emission or detection of THz waves by diverse optical and electrical methods. However, THz PCA still lacks employment of advanced breakthrough technologies for high-power THz emission. Here, we report the enhancement of THz emission power by incorporating optical nanoantennas with a THz photoconductive antenna. The confinement and concentration of an optical pump beam on a photoconductive substrate can be efficiently achieved with optical nanoantennas over a high-index photoconductive substrate. Both numerical and experimental results clearly demonstrate the enhancement of THz wave emission due to high photocarrier generation at the plasmon resonance of nanoantennas. This work opens up many opportunities for diverse integrated photonic elements on a single PCA at THz and optical frequencies.

This work reports a facile wafer-level fabrication for nanogap-rich gold nanoislands for highly sensitive surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) by repeating solid-state thermal dewetting of thin gold film. The method provides enlarged gold nanoislands with small gap spacing, which increase the number of electromagnetic hotspots and thus enhance the extinction intensity as well as the tunability for plasmon resonance wavelength. The plasmonic nanoislands from repeated dewetting substantially increase SERS enhancement factor over one order-of-magnitude higher than those from a single-step dewetting process and they allow ultrasensitive SERS detection of a neurotransmitter with extremely low Raman activity. This simple method provides many opportunities for engineering plasmonics for ultrasensitive detection and highly efficient photon collection.

This work presents a nanoplasmonic photoconductive antenna (PCA) with metal nanoislands for enhancing terahertz (THz) pulse emission. The whole photoconductive area was fully covered with metal nanoislands by using thermal dewetting of thin metal film at relatively low temperature. The metal nanoislands serve as plasmonic nanoantennas to locally enhance the electric field of an ultrashort pulsed pump beam for higher photocarrier generation. The plasmon resonance of metal nanoislands was achieved at an excitation laser wavelength by changing the initial thickness of metal film. This nanoplasmonic PCA shows two times higher enhancement for THz pulse emission power than a conventional PCA. This work opens up a new opportunity for plasmon enhanced large-aperture THz photoconductive antennas.

The surface‐enhanced Raman scattering enhancement (SERS) of small molecules spatially entrapped near hot spots by using nanofluidic channels with localized surface plasmon resonance is reported. Small molecules are introduced into the interstitial nanogaps between a silver film over nanospheres and polydimethylsiloxane, which serve as ‘nanofluidic channels.’ The concurrence between nanofluid stagnation points and the hot spots greatly enhances the SERS signals.

This work reports plasmon enhanced photoacoustic generation by using a three dimensional plasmonic absorber. The 3D plasmonic absorber comprises a thin polymer film on glass nanopillar arrays with nanogap-rich silver nanoislands. The 3D plasmonic absorber clearly shows 24.6 times higher enhancement of photoacoustic signals at an excitation wavelength of 630 nm than a simple polymeric absorber. The photoacoustic enhancement results from the volumetric electromagnetic field enhancement on a light-absorbing polymer through 3D plasmonic nanostructures. This novel photoacoustic absorber provides a new direction for highly efficient ultrasonic generation.

No abstract

To extend the operating window of all-dielectric metamaterials into the visible regime, obtaining controllable magnetic resonance is essential. We experimentally demonstrated strong magnetic resonance at 595 nm using an array of amorphous silicon (a-Si) nanoblocks. The results of both theoretical calculations and experiments show that magnetic resonance can be tuned continuously by appropriately varying the size and thickness of a-Si nanoblocks. We also experimentally achieved a magnetic resonance Q-factor of ∼10, which is a higher value than that yielded by a metallic split-ring resonator in the visible regime.

On page 4510, the pioneering work by K.-H. Jeong and co-workers experimentally reveals a universal and quantitative correlation between plasmon resonance and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) signals by using a novel active plasmonic device with a large tuning span and precise tuning resolution, termed a deformable nanoplasmonic membrane. The image shows the variation in SERS gain under precise tuning of the plasmon resonance by 1 nm over the Raman Stokes shift range.