In this paper, we propose an ultrabroadband chiral metasurface (CMS) composed of S-shaped resonator structures situated between two twisted subwavelength gratings and dielectric substrate. This innovative structure enables ultrabroadband and high-efficiency linear polarization (LP) conversion, as well as asymmetric transmission (AT) effect in the microwave region. The enhanced interference effect of the Fabry–Perot-like resonance cavity greatly expands the bandwidth and efficiency of LP conversion and AT effect. Through numerical simulations, it has been revealed that the cross-polarization transmission coefficients for normal forward (-z) and backward (+z) incidence exceed 0.8 in the frequency range of 4.13 to 17.34 GHz, accompanied by a polarization conversion ratio of over 99%. Furthermore, our microwave experimental results validate the consistency among simulation, theory, and measurement. Additionally, we elucidate the distinct characteristics of ultrabroadband LP conversion and significant AT effect through analysis of polarization azimuth rotation and ellipticity angles, total transmittance, AT coefficient, and electric field distribution. The proposed CMS structure shows excellent polarization conversion properties via AT effect and has potential applications in areas such as radar, remote sensing, and satellite communication.

Topological photonic states have promising applications in slow light, photon sorting, and optical buffering. However, realizing such states in non-Hermitian systems has been challenging due to their complexity and elusive properties. In this work, we have experimentally realized a topological rainbow in non-Hermitian photonic crystals by controlling loss in the microwave frequency range for what we believe is the first time. We reveal that the lossy photonic crystal provides a reliable platform for the study of non-Hermitian photonics, and loss is also taken as a degree of freedom to modulate topological states, both theoretically and experimentally. This work opens a way for the construction of a non-Hermitian photonic crystal platform, will greatly promote the development of topological photonic devices, and will lay a foundation for the real-world applications.

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a high quality (Q)-factor all-silicon bound state in the continuum (BIC) metasurface with an imperforated air-hole array. The metasurface supports two polarization-insensitive BICs originated from guided mode resonances (GMRs) in the frequency range of 0.4 to 0.6 THz, and the measured Q-factors of the two GMRs are as high as 334 and 152, respectively. In addition, the influence of the thickness of the silicon substrate on the two resonances is analyzed in detail. The proposed all-silicon THz metasurface has great potential in the design and application of high-Q metasurfaces.

Hybrid metal-dielectric structures combine the advantages of both metal and dielectric materials, enabling high-confined but low-loss magnetic and electric resonances through deliberate arrangements. However, their potential for enhancing magnetic emission has yet to be fully explored. Here, we study the magnetic and electric Purcell enhancement supported by a hybrid structure composed of a dielectric nanoring and a silver nanorod. This structure enables low Ohmic loss and highly-confined field under the mode hybridization of magnetic resonances on a nanoring and electric resonances on a nanorod in the optical communication band. Thus, the 60-fold magnetic Purcell enhancement and 45-fold electric Purcell enhancement can be achieved. Over 90% of the radiation can be transmitted to the far field. For the sufficiently large Purcell enhancement, the position of emitter has a tolerance of several tens of nanometers, which brings convenience to experimental fabrications. Moreover, an array formed by this hybrid nanostructure can further enhance the magnetic Purcell factors. The system provides a feasible option to selectively excite magnetic and electric emission in integrated photonic circuits. It may also facilitate brighter magnetic emission sources and light-emitting metasurfaces with a more straightforward design.

In this Letter, we report on the investigations of nonlinear scattering of plasmonic nanoparticles by manipulating ambient environments. We create different local thermal hosts for gold nanospheres that are immersed in oil, encapsulated in silica glass and also coated with silica shells. In terms of regulable effective thermal conductivity, silica coatings are found to contribute significantly to scattering saturation. Benefitting from the enhanced thermal stability and the reduced plasmonic coupling provided by the shell-isolated nanoparticles, we achieve super-resolution imaging with a feature size of 52 nm (λ/10), and we can readily resolve pairs of nanoparticles with a gap-to-gap distance of 5 nm.

All-dielectric metasurfaces are usually limited because of their static functionality and small scale. In this paper, we use an easy nanofabrication technique to fabricate all-dielectric metasurfaces with the advantages of having dynamic tunability and a large area. Using an anodized aluminum oxide (AAO) template as an evaporation mask, a large-area metasurface embedded in polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) (>2cm2) is fabricated. The metasurface exhibits remarkable electric dipole (ED) and magnetic dipole (MD) resonances. Based on the solvent-swelling effect of PDMS in 20% toluene, the ED/MD resonance peak shifts dynamically ∼40nm to red. So far, to the best of our knowledge, a large-area metasurface embedded in PDMS and achieved by using the AAO template method has not appeared.

SrMoO3 (SMO) thin films are deposited on LaAlO3 substrates by magnetron sputtering. The effects of ambient temperature on the structural, electrical, and optical properties of the films are investigated. As the temperature increases from 23°C to 800°C, the SMO film exhibits high crystallinity and low electrical resistivity, and the real part of dielectric functions becomes less negative in the visible and near-IR wavelength range, and the epsilon near zero (ENZ) wavelength increases from 460 nm to 890 nm. The optical loss of the SMO film is significantly lower than that of Au, and its plasmonic performance is comparable to or even higher than TiN in the temperature range of 23°C to 600°C. These studies are critical for the design of high-temperature SMO-based plasmonic devices.

An ultrathin angle-insensitive color filter enabling high color saturation and a wide color gamut is proposed by relying on a magnesium hydride-hydrogenated amorphous silicon (MgH₂-a-Si:H) lossy dielectric layer. Based on effective medium theory, the MgH₂-a-Si:H layer with an ultrathin thickness can be equivalent to a quasi-homogeneous dielectric layer with an effective complex refractive index, which can be tuned by altering the thickness of MgH₂ to obtain the targeted value of the imaginary part, corresponding to the realization of high color saturation. It is verified that the proposed color filter offers highly enhanced color saturation in conjunction with a wide color gamut by introducing a few-nanometer thick MgH₂ layer. As the MgH₂-a-Si:H layer retains the advantages of high refractive index and tiny thickness, the proposed color filter exhibits large angular tolerance up to ±60°. In addition, MgH₂ with an unstable property can interconvert with Mg under a dehydrogenation/hydrogenation reaction, which empowers the proposed color filter with dynamically tunable output color. The proposed scheme shows great promise in color printing and ultracompact display devices with high color saturation, wide gamut, large angular tolerance, and dynamic tunability.

Noble metallic nanostructures with strong electric near-field enhancement can significantly improve nanoscale light–matter interactions and are critical for high-sensitivity surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Here, we use an azimuthal vector beam (AVB) to illuminate the plasmonic tips circular cluster (PTCC) array to enhance the electric near-field intensity of the PTCC array, and then use it to improve SERS sensitivity. The PTCC array was prepared based on the self-assembled and inductive coupled plasmon (ICP) etching methods. The calculation results show that, compared with the linearly polarized beam (LPB) and radial vector beam excitations, the AVB excitation can obtain stronger electric near-field enhancement due to the strong resonant responses formed in the nanogap between adjacent plasmonic tips. Subsequently, our experimental results proved that AVB excitation increased SERS sensitivity to 10^-13 mol/L, which is two orders of magnitude higher than that of LPB excitation. Meanwhile, the PTCC array had excellent uniformity with the Raman enhancement factor calculated to be ∼2.4×108. This kind of vector light field enhancing Raman spectroscopy may be applied in the field of sensing technologies, such as the trace amount detection.

We propose a chip-integratable cylindrical vector (CV) beam generator by integrating six plasmonic split ring resonators (SRRs) on a planar photonic crystal (PPC) cavity. The employed PPC cavity is formed by cutting six adjacent air holes in the PPC center, which could generate a CV beam with azimuthally symmetric polarizations. By further integrating six SRRs on the structure defects of the PPC cavity, the polarizations of the CV beam could be tailored by controlling the opening angles of the SRRs, e.g., from azimuthal to radial symmetry. The mechanism is governed by the coupling between the resonance modes in SRRs and PPC cavity, which modifies the far-field radiation of the resonance mode of the PPC cavity with the SRR as the nano-antenna. The integration of SRRs also increases the coupling of the generated CV beam with the free-space optics, such as an objective lens, promising its further applications in optical communication, optical tweezer, imaging, etc.