Electrically connected optical metasurfaces with high efficiencies are crucial for developing spatiotemporal metadevices with ultrahigh spatial and ultrafast temporal resolutions. While efficient metal–insulator–metal (MIM) metasurfaces containing discretized meta-atoms require additional electrodes, Babinet-inspired slot-antenna-based plasmonic metasurfaces suffer from low efficiencies and limited phase coverage for copolarized optical fields. Capitalizing on the concepts of conventional MIM and slot-antenna metasurfaces, we design and experimentally demonstrate a new type of optical reflective metasurfaces consisting of mirror-coupled slot antennas (MCSAs). By tuning the dimensions of rectangular-shaped nanoapertures atop a dielectric-coated gold mirror, we achieve efficient phase modulation within a sufficiently large range of 320 deg and realize functional phase-gradient metadevices for beam steering and beam splitting in the near-infrared range. The fabricated samples show (22 % ± 2 % ) diffraction efficiency for beam steering and (17 % ± 1 % ) for beam splitting at the wavelength of 790 nm. The considered MCSA configuration, dispensing with auxiliary electrodes, offers an alternative and promising platform for electrically controlled reflective spatiotemporal metasurfaces.

NaYF4:Eu nanorods with high aspect ratios are elaborated and optically trapped using dual fiber optical tweezers in a counterpropagating geometry. High trapping efficiency is observed using converging beams, emitted from diffractive Fresnel lenses directly 3D printed onto cleaved fiber facets. Stable nanorod trapping and alignment are reported for a fiber-to-fiber distance of 200 μm and light powers down to 10 mW. Trapping of nanorod clusters containing one to three nanorods and the coupling of nanorod motion in both axial and transverse directions are considered and discussed. The europium emission is studied by polarization-resolved spectroscopy with particular emphasis on the magnetic and electric dipole transitions. The respective σ and π orientations of the different emission lines are determined. The angles with respect to the nanorod axes of the corresponding magnetic and electric dipoles are calculated. Mono-exponential emission decay with decay time of 4–5 ms is reported. It is shown that the nanorod orientation can be determined by purely spectroscopic means.

We present a fully automated laser system with low-intensity noise for coherent Raman scattering microscopy. The robust two-color system is pumped by a solid-state oscillator, which provides Stokes pulses fixed at 1043 nm. The tunable pump pulses of 750 to 950 nm are generated by a frequency-doubled fiber-feedback femtosecond optical parametric oscillator. The resulting pulse duration of 1.2 ps provides a viable compromise between optimal coherent Raman scattering signal and the necessary spectral resolution. Thus a spectral range of 1015 to 3695 cm ¹ with spectral resolution of <13 cm ¹ can be addressed.