We propose a design of single-mode orbital angular momentum (OAM) beam laser with high direct-modulation bandwidth. It is a microcylinder/microring cavity interacted with two types of second-order gratings: the complex top grating containing the real part and the imaginary part modulations and the side grating. The side grating etched on the periphery of the microcylinder/microring cavity can select a whispering gallery mode with a specific azimuthal mode number, while the complex top grating can scatter the lasing mode with travelling-wave pattern vertically. With the cooperation of the gratings, the laser works with a single mode and emits radially polarized OAM beams. With an asymmetrical pad metal on the top of the cavity, the OAM on-chip laser can firstly be directly modulated with electrical pumping. Due to the small active volume, the laser with low threshold current is predicted to have a high direct modulation bandwidth about 29 GHz with the bias current of ten times the threshold from the simulation. The semiconductor OAM laser can be rather easily realized at different wavelengths such as the O band, C band, and L band.

Modal analysis of the 1×3 highly efficient reflective triangular grating operating in the 800 nm wavelength under normal incidence for TE polarization is presented in this Letter. The rigorous coupled wave analysis and simulated annealing algorithm are used to design this beam splitter. The reflective grating consists of a highly reflective mirror and a transmission grating on the top. The mechanism of the reflective triangular grating is clarified by the simplified modal method. Then, gratings are fabricated by direct laser writing lithography.

We present a technique for fabricating a fluorescence enhancement device composed of metal nanoparticles (NPs) and porous silicon (PSi) diffraction grating. The fluorescence emission enhancement properties of the PSi and the fluorescence enhancement of the probe molecules are studied on PSi gratings. The fluorescence enhancement of the probe molecules on a fluorescence enhancement device is further improved through the deposition of metal NPs onto the PSi grating. In comparison to metal NP/PSi devices, metal NP periodic distributions can produce a stronger fluorescence enhancement that couples with the PSi grating fluorescence enhancement to achieve an overall three-fold enhancement of the fluorescence intensity.

Conventional periodic structures usually have nontunable refractive indices and thus lead to immutable photonic bandgaps. A periodic structure created in an ultracold atoms ensemble by externally controlled light can overcome this disadvantage and enable lots of promising applications. Here, two novel types of optically induced square lattices, i.e., the amplitude and phase lattices, are proposed in an ultracold atoms ensemble by interfering four ordinary plane waves under different parameter conditions. We demonstrate that in the far-field regime, the atomic amplitude lattice with high transmissivity behaves similarly to an ideal pure sinusoidal amplitude lattice, whereas the atomic phase lattices capable of producing phase excursion across a weak probe beam along with high transmissivity remains equally ideal. Moreover, we identify that the quality of Talbot imaging about a phase lattice is greatly improved when compared with an amplitude lattice. Such an atomic lattice could find applications in all-optical switching at the few photons level and paves the way for imaging ultracold atoms or molecules both in the near-field and in the far-field with a nondestructive and lensless approach.

A metallic nanostructured array that scatters radiation toward a thin metallic layer generates surface plasmon resonances for normally incident light. The location of the minimum of the spectral reflectivity serves to detect changes in the index of refraction of the medium under analysis. The normal incidence operation eases its integration with optical fibers. The geometry of the arrangement and the material selection are changed to optimize some performance parameters as sensitivity, figure of merit, field enhancement, and spectral width. This optimization takes into account the feasibility of the fabrication. The evaluated results of sensitivity (1020 nm/RIU) and figure of merit (614 RIU?1) are competitive with those previously reported.

Ghost imaging and diffraction, inspired by the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect, have potential in both classical and quantum optics regimes on account of their nonlocal characteristics and subwavelength resolution capability, and therefore have aroused particular interest. By extending the correspondence imaging scheme, we utilize the positive and negative intensity correlations in diffraction and perform subwavelength diffraction with pseudo-thermal light. In the experiment, a subwavelength (λ/2) resolution and a better signal-to-noise ratio (10.3% improvement) are simultaneously achieved. The scheme can be utilized as a complement to the existing ghost imaging scheme to improve image quality.

A method for beam diffraction sidelobe suppression based on the combination of volume Bragg gratings (VBGs) with different thicknesses or periods for angular filtering is proposed and performed. Simulated and experimental results show that the beam diffraction sidelobe is reduced from 12% to less than 1% with the non-sidelobe angular filter. The non-sidelobe angular filtering based on VBGs with thicknesses of 2.5 and 2.9 mm is simulated and demonstrated. The near-field distribution of filtered beams through the non-sidelobe angular filter is obviously smoother than that of the single VBG. The near-field modulation and contrast ratio (C) of filtered beams are found to be improved 1.17 and 1.66 times that of the single VBG. The far-field C of the filtered beam is improved to about 100∶1 and the power spectral density analysis shows that the cutoff frequency of the angular filter is greatly optimized with the VBG combination.