Achromatic Talbot lithography (ATL) with high resolution has been demonstrated to be an excellent technique for large area periodic nano-fabrication. In this work, the uniformity of pattern distribution in ATL was studied in detail. Two ATL transmission masks with ～50% duty cycle in a square lattice were illuminated by a spatial coherent broadband extreme ultraviolet beam with a relative bandwidth of 2.38%. Nonuniform dot size distribution was observed by experiments and finite-difference time-domain simulations. The sum of the two kinds of diffraction patterns, with different lattice directions (45° rotated) and different intensity distributions, results in the final nonuniform pattern distribution.

The effect of material surface morphology on the periodic subwavelength of nano-structures induced by a femtosecond (fs) laser was investigated systematically from the initial surface roughness, the different scratches, the pre-formed ripples, and the “layer-carving” technology experiments. The results of the comparative experiments indicate that the initial surface conditions of the target surface have no obvious effects on the spatial structured periods (SSPs) and the ripple orientation of the periodic nano-structures induced by a fs laser, which agreed well with the foretold present surface two-plasmon resonance (STPR) model. Furthermore, different shapes of nano-grids with high regularity and uniformity were obtained by fs-laser fabrication.

Natural surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) chips based on plants or insects have gained increased attention due to their facile characteristics and low costs. However, such chips remain a major challenge for practical application because of poor reproducibility and stability as well as unavoidable damage to the surface structure during coating metal and uncontrolled dehydration. By using a simple wrinkling method, we develop a new route to fabricate a low-cost bionic SERS chip for practical detection. Inspired by the taro leaf, we fabricate a SERS chip with a super-hydrophobic and plasmonic micro/nano dual structure, and its structure parameters can be optimized. Compared with the natural taro-leaf SERS chip, our artificial chip exhibits Raman signals with an order of magnitude higher sensitivity (～10 9 M) and enhancement factor (～107) under the illumination of weak laser radiation, demonstrating that our SERS chip has great potential in biological detection. The excellent performances of our bionic SERS chip are attributed to a synergy of optimized micro-wrinkle and nano-nest, which is verified by experiment and simulation. We believe our bionic chip could be a promising candidate in practical application due to its merits such as simple fabricating process, optimizable structure, low cost, excellent homogeneity, high sensitivity, and stability.

We theoretically design and experimentally realize a broadband ultrasmall microcavity for sensing a varying number of microparticles whose diameter is 2 μm in a freely suspended microfiber. The performance of the microcavity is predicted by the theory of one-dimensional photonic crystals and verified by the numerical simulation of finite-difference time domain and the experimental characterization of reflection and transmission spectra. A penetrating length into the reflectors as small as about four periods is demonstrated in the numerical simulation, giving rise to an ultrasmall effective mode volume that can increase the sensitivity and spatial resolution of sensing. Moreover, a reflection band as large as 150 nm from the reflectors of the microcavity has been realized in silica optical microfiber in the experiment, which highly expands the wavelength range of sensing. Our proposed microcavity integrated into a freely suspended optical fiber offers a convenient and stable method for long-distance sensing of microparticles without the need for complicated coupling systems and is free from the influence of substrates.

This Letter reports the formation of periodic surface structures on Ni–Fe film irradiated by a single femtosecond laser pulse. A concave lens with a focus length of 150 mm is placed in front of an objective (100×, NA=0.9), which transforms the Gaussian laser field into a ring distribution by the Fresnel diffraction. Periodic ripples form on the ablation area after the irradiation of a single femtosecond laser pulse, which depends on the laser polarization and laser fluence. We propose that the ring structure of the laser field leads to a similar transient distribution of the permittivity on the sample surface, which further launches the surface plasmon polaritons. The interaction of the incident laser with surface plasmon polaritons dominates the formation of periodic surface structures.

A constant elastic alloy is a widely used material with a high elastic modulus and an excellent wave velocity consistency. Different morphologies on the constant elastic alloy surface are observed through femtosecond laser irradiation. When the laser average fluence is set to 0.58 J/cm2 and 200 laser pulses, with the increasing depth of distilled water, the period of the laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) becomes shorter accordingly. The higher the ethanol concentration is, the more spot-shaped structures will be formed among the surface structures when the depth of the coverage of ethanol is 2 mm. The period of the LIPSS reaches its maximum when the concentration of ethanol is 80%.

A versatile nanosphere composite lithography (NSCL) combining both the advantages of multiple-exposure nanosphere lens lithography (MENSLL) and nanosphere template lithography (NSTL) is demonstrated. By well controlling the development, washing and the drying processes, the nanosphere monolayer can be well retained on the substrate after developing and washing. Thus the NSTL can be performed based on MENSLL to fabricate nanoring, nanocrescent and hierarchical multiple structures. The pattern size and the shape can be systemically tuned by shrinking nanospheres by using dry etching and adjusting the tilted angle. It is a natural nanopattern alignment process and possesses a great potential in the scope of nano-science due to its low cost, simplicity, and versatility for variuos nano-fabrications.

During the formation of sub-wavelength ripples, the initial surface plasmon (SP)-laser interference plays an important role. In this Letter, the effects of grating structures on the distribution of the absorbed laser intensity, SP-laser coupling, free electron distributions, and ablation shapes are investigated by the plasma model, taking into consideration both the laser wave-particle duality and the transient localized changes of material properties. The simulation results show that the grating structures can strongly enhance the energy absorption and SP-laser coupling, which makes the fabrication of sub-wavelength ripples more efficient. It is also found that the ablation shapes, in terms of ablation depths and sub-wavelength ripples periods, are strongly related to the grating structures, which can be used to control micro/nanostructures precisely and uniformly.