High-contrast Gratings Research Articles

Ultrahigh-reflectivity chiral mirrors based on the metasurface of the quarter-waveplate

A study is conducted on a GaAs-based high-contrast subwavelength chiral metasurface (HCCM) designed for 1064 nm. The metasurface integrates a high-contrast subwavelength grating (HCG) for TM mode modulation, a SiO2 support layer, and a compact quarter-waveplate (QWP) to convert linearly polarized light to circularly polarized light. The HCG achieves ultra-high reflectivity at 1064 nm, attributed to the large refractive index contrast between the Si grating and SiO2 layer. The designed HCCM has a reflectivity of more than 99 % for the TM mode and less than 80 % for the TE waves in the wavelength range of 1050 nm–1085nm, and it can also excite the circularly polarized light with an absolute error of less than 0.03 at the transmitting end in the case of the 1064 nm TM wavelength. These results suggest that circular dichroic metasurfaces could offer a promising approach for photonic manipulation in circular polarization VCSELs, potentially reducing the manufacturing challenges and costs associated with traditional methods.

Thin-film dielectric characterization by bound state in the continuum in high contrast grating

Subwavelength high contrast grating (HCG) is renowned for its remarkable ability to produce sharp optical resonance, known as the bound state in the continuum (BIC). Due to the strong surface field enhancement, the resonant wavelength and quality factor (Q factor) are highly sensitive to the dielectric properties of the surrounding medium. We propose utilizing this extraordinary phenomenon for thin-film dielectric characterization based on a film-substrate-grating configuration. By optimizing the geometrical parameters to control the cross-interference between guided modes in the grating and self-interference of propagating wave in the substrate slab, an accidental BIC with a Q factor reaching 104 is excited. Using this BIC, two retrieval methods based on contour mapping of resonant wavelength and Q factor are proposed to extract the complex permittivity (εf) of the film under test. It has been demonstrated that with a film thickness as thin as 10−5 times the grating period, the error in the retrieved Re[εf] is below 2%, and that of Im[εf] is below 10%. The proposed design is a strong candidate for non-destructive dielectric characterization of thin films with thicknesses below one-thousandth of the operating wavelength. This characterization technique can facilitate the development of high-frequency devices for the 6 G high-speed communication.

Room-temperature DBR-free VCSEL operation on an InGaN/GaN thin-film platform with a monolithic surface grating.

Vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are pivotal in various applications ranging from data communication to sensing technologies. This study introduces a VCSEL design featuring a monolithic top surface high contrast grating (HCG) reflector on a thin-film substrate, aimed at improving lasing performance while reducing fabrication costs by omitting the use of distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). We fabricated the proposed VCSEL with the surface grating and characterized its performance through micro-photoluminescence measurements. The laser demonstrated room-temperature lasing at 436.2 nm with a Q factor of 4600 and a lasing threshold of 5.5 kW/cm2 under optical pumping. The implementation of the surface grating reflector was instrumental in facilitating vertical lasing, significantly improving surface reflectivity compared to conventional flat GaN/air interfaces. This innovative design holds significant promise for the development of cost-effective, DBR-free VCSELs, with potential applications extending to photonic integrated circuits and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) systems.

Design and optimization of high-contrast gratings for multispectral VCSEL-SOI laser sources

In the scope of a computational experiment, high-contrast gratings (HCG) formed on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform within vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) were studied for multispectral laser sources. A simulation model for spectral characteristics calculation is proposed, which includes two heterogeneously integrated parts of the VCSEL: 1) the lower output mirror based on a HCG grating in the silicon layer of the SOI surrounded by air cavities to enhance the contrast of the HCG; 2) the semiconductor VCSEL structure with an air aperture for current and optical confinement. Comparative analysis results of the spectral characteristics of VCSEL-SOI structures for zeroth, first, and second-order modes, which can be excited in the air aperture of the VCSEL, are presented. It is demonstrated that the HCG, acting as one of the cavity mirrors, effectively discriminates the VCSEL higher-order modes. An algorithm for calculating HCG parameters that ensure the maximum reflectivity at a fixed thickness of the silicon layer of the SOI is developed.

Terahertz Liquid Sensing With Spoof Surface Plasmons Based on High-Contrast Gratings

Terahertz Liquid Sensing With Spoof Surface Plasmons Based on High-Contrast Gratings

Detector-integrated vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with a movable high-contrast grating mirror

In this paper, we present a detector-integrated vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) with a movable high-contrast grating (HCG) mirror in an n-i-p-i-n manner. The detector-integrated VCSEL with a movable HCG can achieve three functions, including wavelength tuning, power monitoring, and resonant-cavity-enhanced (RCE) photon detection. Currently, the device can achieve a wavelength tuning range of 27 nm at room temperature when the suspended HCG is driven by the reverse-bias voltage. The n-i-p structure located at the upper part of the device can serve as an intra-cavity photodiode to monitor the output power due to the defect absorption. The RCE photon detection function of the detector-integrated VCSEL with a movable HCG is measured, and it has a peak responsivity at about 926 nm. This detector-integrated VCSEL with a movable HCG will be useful for sensing and imaging.

Study on Bottom Distributed Bragg Reflector Radius and Electric Aperture Radius on Performance Characteristics of GaN-Based Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser.

This article presents the results of a numerical analysis of a nitride-based vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). The analyzed laser features an upper mirror composed of a monolithic high-contrast grating (MHCG) and a dielectric bottom mirror made of SiO2 and Ta2O5 materials. The emitter was designed for light emission at a wavelength of 403 nm. We analyze the influence of the size of the dielectric bottom mirrors on the operation of the laser, including its power-current-voltage (LIV) characteristics. We also study the effect of changing the electrical aperture radius (active area dimensions). We demonstrate that the appropriate selection of these two parameters enables the temperature inside the laser to be reduced, lowering the laser threshold current and increasing its optical power output significantly.

Changes in high-frequency aperiodic 1/f slope and periodic activity reflect post-stimulus functional inhibition in the visual cortex

Abstract It has been shown that cessation of intensive sensory stimulation is associated with a transient increase in functional inhibition in the sensory cortical areas. However, the electrophysiological correlates of this post-stimulus inhibition in the human brain have not been thoroughly investigated. To investigate post-stimulus inhibition, we analyzed magnetoencephalogram (MEG) recorded at rest and after cessation of visual stimulation of varying intensity (high-contrast gratings drifting at a slow, medium, or high rate) in 25 healthy women aged 18–40 years. We analyzed condition- and intensity-related changes in MEG parameters sensitive to functional inhibition: periodic alpha-beta power, peak alpha frequency (PAF), and 1/f aperiodic slope. We also investigated the association of these parameters with sensory sensitivity and avoidance assessed by a questionnaire. To evaluate the influence of hormonal status on the studied parameters, participants were examined twice, during the follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle (MC). Regardless of the MC phase, increasing drift rate of visual gratings resulted in a proportional increase of post-stimulus posterior alpha-beta power, PAF, and a negative shift of the aperiodic (1/f) slope of the power spectrum in the high-frequency range. Compared to rest, the post-stimulus periods were characterized by higher PAF, more negative 1/f slope in posterior cortical areas, and a widespread increase in beta power. While condition- and drift-rate-dependent modulations of alpha-beta power and 1/f slope were correlated, changes in PAF did not correlate with either of them. A greater intensity-dependent increase in visual alpha-beta power predicted higher subjective sensory sensitivity/avoidance, suggesting stronger regulatory top-down modulation of the visual cortex in individuals with heightened sensitivity. Our results show that several MEG parameters concordantly indicate a post-stimulus enhancement of inhibition that is proportional to the intensity of the preceding visual stimulation. While post-stimulus changes in alpha-beta power and 1/f slope may share some common mechanisms, changes in PAF reflect a distinct aspect of inhibitory regulation. Our results inform potential inhibition-based biomarkers for clinical and translational research.

Sensory Drive Modifies Brain Dynamics and the Temporal Integration Window.

Perception is suggested to occur in discrete temporal windows, clocked by cycles of neural oscillations. An important testable prediction of this theory is that individuals' peak frequencies of oscillations should correlate with their ability to segregate the appearance of two successive stimuli. An influential study tested this prediction and showed that individual peak frequency of spontaneously occurring alpha (8-12 Hz) correlated with the temporal segregation threshold between two successive flashes of light [Samaha, J., & Postle, B. R. The speed of alpha-band oscillations predicts the temporal resolution of visual perception. Current Biology, 25, 2985-2990, 2015]. However, these findings were recently challenged [Buergers, S., & Noppeney, U. The role of alpha oscillations in temporal binding within and across the senses. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 732-742, 2022]. To advance our understanding of the link between oscillations and temporal segregation, we devised a novel experimental approach. Rather than relying entirely on spontaneous brain dynamics, we presented a visual grating before the flash stimuli that is known to induce continuous oscillations in the gamma band (45-65 Hz). By manipulating the contrast of the grating, we found that high contrast induces a stronger gamma response and a shorter temporal segregation threshold, compared to low-contrast trials. In addition, we used a novel tool to characterize sustained oscillations and found that, for half of the participants, both the low- and high-contrast gratings were accompanied by a sustained and phase-locked alpha oscillation. These participants tended to have longer temporal segregation thresholds. Our results suggest that visual stimulus drive, reflected by oscillations in specific bands, is related to the temporal resolution of visual perception.

Terahertz characterization of nano-scale high-entropy alloy films and their high-contrast grating applications

We investigated the optical constants of thin films of the Nb25Mo25Ta25W25 alloy, which belongs to high-entropy alloys (HEAs), with a transmission terahertz (THz) measurement system and discovered that the refractive index, extinction coefficient, and conductivity of the HEA thin film measured in the range of 0.3–1.0 THz all increased as the thickness of the thin film increased (the thickness was maintained in the range between 10 and 40 nm). According to the experimental results, this alloy with a high refractive index is suitable for producing high-contrast gratings (HCGs). The principle behind achieving a high contrast with a high-reflection HEA grating is to harness the confined plasmonic energy within the grating, thereby enhancing the localized plasmonic energy within the grating. This work elucidates that we can not only fabricate THz components by controlling the thickness of the thin film but also utilize the high refractive index of this material to create HCGs.

Enhancing surface sensing performance of cascaded high contrast gratings using bound states in the continuum.

We proposed the cascaded high contrast grating (CHCG) structure to enhance surface sensing capabilities through bound states in the continuum (BICs). Utilizing the finite element method (FEM) and rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA), we studied the dispersion relations, far-field contribution CHCGs, and near-field distributions of BICs corresponding to resonance peaks at different wavelengths. Results demonstrate the ability to precisely control symmetry-protected BIC (SP-BIC) and Friedrich-Wintgen BIC (FW-BIC) resonance peaks by altering incident angles and structural parameters, enhancing structure robustness and tunability. Significantly, modes 1 and 2 have demonstrated substantial enhancement in surface refractive index sensing, achieving highest sensitivities at 51 nm/RIU and the figure of merit reaching 490.8 RIU-1, indicating notable advancement in detecting subtle surface changes. In contrast, mode 3 has shown robust performance in bulk refractive index sensing, achieving a sensitivity of 602 nm/RIU and a figure of merit of 5189.65 RIU-1. These findings underscore the significant potential of the structure as a high-performance integrated sensor, particularly for precise environmental and biological monitoring in surface refractive index sensing.

Monolithic High Contrast Grating Integrated with Metal: Infrared Electrode with Exceptionally High Conductivity and Transmission

AbstractThe design of transparent conductive electrodes (TCEs) for optoelectronic devices requires a trade‐off between high conductivity and transmittivity, limiting their efficiency. This paper demonstrates the best ever achieved TCEs with the novel approach to fabricating TCEs that effectively alleviates this trade‐off: a monolithic high contrast grating integrated with metal (metalMHCG). The metalMHCG enables higher electrical conductivity than other TCEs, while providing transmissive and antireflective properties. It focuses on infrared spectrum TCEs, which are essential for sensing, thermal imaging, and automotive applications. However, due to elevated free carrier absorption, they are much more demanding than TCEs for the visible spectrum. It demonstrates a record 75% absolute transmittiance of unpolarized light, resulting in a record 108% transmittance relative to plain GaAs substrate. It achieves even larger absolute transmittance of polarized light, reaching 92% or 133% relative transmittance. Despite the record high transmittance, the sheet resistance of the metalMHCG is the best ever reported, several times lower than any other TCE, ranging from 0.5 to 1 Ω Sq−1.

Polarization structured light 3D depth image sensor for scenes with reflective surfaces

Highly reflective surfaces are notorious in the field of depth sensing and three-dimensional (3D) imaging because they can cause severe errors in perception of the depth. Despite recent progress in addressing this challenge, there are still no robust and error-free solutions. Here, we devise a polarization structured light 3D sensor for solving these problems, in which high-contrast-grating (HCG) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) are used to exploit the polarization property. We demonstrate accurate depth measurements of the reflective surfaces and objects behind them in various imaging situations. In addition, the absolute error and effective measurement range are measured to prove the applicability for a wide range of 3D applications. Our work innovatively combines polarization and depth information, opening the way for fully understanding and applying polarization properties in the 3D domain.

High-performance gas sensor with symmetry-protected quasi-bound states in the continuum.

A high-performance optical sensor with a vertical cavity structure comprising high-contrast gratings (HCGs) and a distributed Bragg reflector was designed. The structure has two peaks with different mechanisms, among which the first peak is formed by breaking the symmetry of the structure and coupling between the incident wave and the symmetric protection mode. The joint action of the HCG resonance and Fabry-Perot resonance formed a second peak. Moreover, changing the structural parameters, such as the grating width, period, and cavity length, can tune the spectral reflection dips. The sensitivity of the designed structure was as high as 674 nm/RIU, and the corresponding figure of merit was approximately 34741. The presented gas sensor provides a method for applying a vertical cavity structure to the sensing domain.

Adaptation of Ocular Opponency Neurons Mediates Attention-Induced Ocular Dominance Plasticity.

Previous research has shown that ocular dominance can be biased by prolonged attention to one eye. The ocular-opponency-neuron model of binocular rivalry has been proposed as a candidate account for this phenomenon. Yet direct neural evidence is still lacking. By manipulating the contrast of dichoptic testing gratings, here we measured the steady-state visually evoked potentials (SSVEPs) at the intermodulation frequencies to selectively track the activities of ocular-opponency-neurons before and after the "dichoptic-backward-movie" adaptation. One hour of adaptation caused a shift of perceptual and neural ocular dominance towards the unattended eye. More importantly, we found a decrease in the intermodulation SSVEP response after adaptation, which was significantly greater when high-contrast gratings were presented to the attended eye than when they were presented to the unattended eye. These results strongly support the view that the adaptation of ocular-opponency-neurons contributes to the ocular dominance plasticity induced by prolonged eye-based attention.

Embedded silicon gratings for high-efficiency light-chip coupling to thin film silicon nitride waveguides.

Thin film silicon nitride (<150 nm) waveguide has emerged as a dominant ultra-low-loss platform for many loss-critical applications. While thin-film silicon nitride propagation loss is a crucial characteristic, coupling light between an optical fiber and the waveguide is still challenging. While the larger mode size of the decoupled thin waveguide offers better coupling than a highly-confined waveguide, the coupling efficiency is still sub-optimal. The poor diffraction efficiency of such thin films limits the scope of implementing standalone surface gratings. We demonstrate an efficient way to couple into thin film silicon nitride waveguides using amorphous silicon strip gratings. The high contrast gratings provide an efficient means to boost the directionality from thin films leading to an enhanced coupling performance. In addition, we incorporate a bottom reflector to further improve the coupling. We present an optimal design for uniform strip gratings with a maximum coupling efficiency of -1.7 dB/coupler. We achieved a maximum coupling efficiency of -0.28 dB/coupler by engineering the scattering strength along the grating through apodization. We have experimentally shown the highest coupling efficiency reported yet of -2.22 dB/coupler and -1.84 dB/coupler for uniform and apodized grating couplers in the C-L band. We present a detailed design strategy, simulation, fabrication and characterization data on the effect of various parameters on the coupling efficiency.

Efficient Blue-Green Light Phased Array Based on High-Contrast Grating as a Demultiplexer

Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology has been proven to effectively increase the capacity of optical communications in the infrared light band. However, to date, the WDM systems in the visible band only support limited quantity of wavelength channels, with coarse channel spacing of over 20 nm. This is because there are no available multi/demultiplexers (MUX/DeMUX) with fine wavelength spacing for visible light. In this work, we use a high-contrast grating (HCG) structure to effectively separate the blue-green wavelengths with fine spacing. An efficient blue-green light phased array based on HCG aperture is demonstrated to work as the DeMUX in a WDM system. The HCG aperture presents more efficient main-lobe radiation than typical one-dimensional waveguide surface grating arrays with fishbone antennas. The measured main-lobe loss of optical phased array (OPA) with HCG is over 15 dB lower than that of OPA with fishbone antennas, because HCG provides maximum scatterings for blue-green light. A wavelength spacing as small as 4 nm is validated in a blue-green WDM system, which is the finest channel spacing for WDM in visible band to the best of our knowledge.

Optical Biosensors Based on Nanostructured Silicon High-Contrast Gratings for Myoglobin Detection

Optical Biosensors Based on Nanostructured Silicon High-Contrast Gratings for Myoglobin Detection

Mechanism and tuning sensitivity of symmetry-protected resonances in high-contrast gratings.

We develop a theory of refractive index tuning for symmetry-protected optical bound states (SP-BICs) in high-contrast gratings (HCGs). A compact analytical formula for tuning sensitivity is derived and verified numerically. We also discover a new type of SP-BIC in HCGs that has an accidental nature with a spectral singularity, which is explained in terms of hybridization and strong coupling among the odd- and even-symmetric waveguide-array modes. Our work elucidates the physics of tuning SP-BICs in HCGs and significantly simplifies their design and optimization for dynamic applications in light modulation, tunable filtering, and sensing.

Polarization-independent high contrast grating 1300 nm dot-in-a-well InAs quantum-dot VCSEL

High contrast grating (HCG) 1300 nm InAs/GaAs quantum dot (QD) vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) has been introduced in this manuscript and the impact of device structure on the self-heating effect and device temperature has been investigated. A self-consistent model that couples the opto-electro-thermal model of the device to the optical gain model is used to calculate optical gain. Simulated results indicate that the proposed structure significantly lowers the hole-burning effect due to a decrease in temperature. So, in contrast to the conventional QD-VCSELs, the HCG QD-VCSEL exhibits better carrier confinement due to hole quantum efficiency of 54% as opposed to 45% for the conventional QD-VCSELs at their rollover current density. Also, results show an improvement of 66% in the maximum output power from the HCG QD-VCSEL compared to a conventional QD-VCSEL structure. In addition, the 3-dB modulation bandwidth has been boosted compared to conventional QD-VCSELs.