Plasmonic metasurfaces have recently attracted much attention because of their novel characteristics with respect to light polarization and wave front control on deep-subwavelength scales. The development of metasurfaces with reconfigurable optical responses is opening new opportunities in high-capacity communications, real-time holograms and adaptive optics. Such tunable devices have been developed in the mid-infrared spectral range and operated in light intensity modulation schemes. Here we present a novel optically reconfigurable hybrid metasurface that enables polarization tuning at optical frequencies. The functionality of tuning is realized by switching the coupling conditions between the plasmonic modes and the binary isomeric states of an ethyl red switching layer upon light stimulation. We achieved more than 20° nonlinear changes in the transmitted polarization azimuth using just 4 mW of switching light power. Such design schemes and principles could be easily applied to dynamically adjust the functionalities of other metasurfaces.

Polarizers provide convenience in generating polarized light, meanwhile their adoption raises problems of extra weight, cost, and energy loss. Aiming to realize polarizer-free polarized light sources, herein, we present a plasmonic approach to achieve direct generation of linearly polarized optical waves at the nanometer scale. Periodic slot nanoantenna arrays are fabricated, which are driven by the transition dipole moments of luminescent semiconductor quantum dots. By harnessing interactions between quantum dots and scattered fields from the nanoantennas, spontaneous emission with a high degree of linear polarization is achieved from such hybrid antenna system with polarization perpendicular to antenna slot. We also demonstrate that the polarization is engineerable in aspects of both spectrum and magnitude by tailoring plasmonic resonance of the antenna arrays. Our findings will establish a basis for the development of innovative polarized light-emitting devices, which are useful in optical displays, spectroscopic techniques, optical telecommunications, and so forth.

In this paper, we demonstrate a plasmonic type displacement sensor based on slot metamaterials. The sensors are formed by arranging metamaterial arrays with different dimension parameters adjacently. Hence, the measured spectra would be modified as a result of moving the sensors across the detecting area of the spectrometer. From the spectral changes, the displacement amount could be retrieved. The sensor is demonstrated to be capable of recognizing a displacement of 200 nm, which is equal to the period of the metamaterial lattice, and the sensitivity is largely dependent on the shape and size of the acquisition area of the spectrometer used for spectra analysis.

In this paper, strain sensors based on planar scaffold metamaterial design are demonstrated. The optical properties of such metamaterials are studied, which are proved to be highly dependent on the deformation of the structure. Fabricating such metamaterial on compliant polymeric substrate, the geometric parameters could be tuned with external strain and hence are found to control the reflection resonance condition of the metamaterial. Such mechanical tunability provides the opportunity to realize efficient strain sensors and about 27 nm resonance wavelength shift is observed by applying as much as 37% tensile strain. Furthermore, distinct from most of the previous works, our structures are based on “intaglio” design, which could be manufactured directly by one step fabrication using focused ion beam cutting, hence makes the fabrication process much simpler.

The room-temperature third order nonlinearities in GaAs/AlGaAs multiple quantum wells have been studied using reflection Z-scan technique. Band-filling effect is considered to be the major nonlinear mechanism of the nonlinear absorption. A model to calculate the absorption coefficient of quantum wells in the nonlinear regime is presented.