Designing multifunctional surfaces that have user-specified interactions with impacting liquids and with incident light is a topic of both fundamental and practical significance. Taking cues from nature, we use tapered conical nanotextures to fabricate the multifunctional surfaces; the slender conical features result in large topographic roughness, while the axial gradient in the effective refractive index minimizes reflection through adiabatic index-matching between air and the substrate. Precise geometric control of the conical shape and slenderness of the features as well as periodicity at the nanoscale are all keys to optimizing the multifunctionality of the textured surface, but at the same time, these demands pose the toughest fabrication challenges. Here we report a systematic approach to concurrent design of optimal structures in the fluidic and optical domains and a fabrication procedure that achieves the desired aspect ratios and periodicities with few defects and large pattern area. Our fabricated nanostructures demonstrate structural superhydrophilicity or, in combination with a suitable chemical coating, robust superhydrophobicity. Enhanced polarization-independent optical transmission exceeding 98% has also been achieved over a broad range of bandwidth and incident angles. These nanotextured surfaces are also robustly antifogging or self-cleaning, offering potential benefits for applications such as photovoltaic solar cells.

We propose a photonic crystal nanocavity design with self-similar electromagnetic boundary conditions, achieving ultrasmall mode volume (V eff ). The electric energy density of a cavity mode can be maximized in the air or dielectric region, depending on the choice of boundary conditions. We illustrate the design concept with a silicon-air one-dimensional photon crystal cavity that reaches an ultrasmall mode volume of V eff ∼ 7.01 × 10 −5 λ 3 at λ ∼ 1550 nm. We show that the extreme light concentration in our design can enable ultrastrong Kerr nonlinearities, even at the single-photon level. These features open new directions in cavity quantum electrodynamics, spectroscopy, and quantum nonlinear optics. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.223605 Optical nanocavities with small mode volume (V eff ) and high quality factor (Q) can greatly increase light-matter interaction [1] and have a wide range of applications including nanocavity lasers [2-4], cavity quantum electrodynamics [5,6], single-molecule spectroscopy [7], and nonlinear optics [8][9][10]. Planar photonic crystal cavities can enable high Q factors, exceeding 10 6 [11], together with mode volumes that are typically on the order of a qubic wavelength. However, it was shown that by introducing an air slot into a photonic crystal (PhC) cavity, it is possible to achieve the electromagnetic (EM) mode with small V eff on the order of 0.01λ 3 [12], where λ is the freespace wavelength. This field concentration results from the boundary condition on the normal component of the electric displacement ( ⃗ D). Here, we propose a method to further reduce V eff by making use of the second EM boundary condition, the conservation of the parallel component of the electric field. Furthermore, these field concentration methods can be concatenated to reduce V eff even further, limited only by practical considerations such as fabrication resolution. The extreme field concentration of our cavity design opens new possibilities in nonlinear optics. In particular, we show that Kerr nonlinearities, which are normally weak, would be substantially enhanced so that even a single photon may shift the cavity resonance by a full linewidth, under realistic assumptions of materials and fabrication tolerances.The mode volume of a dielectric cavity [described by the spatially varying permittivity ϵð ⃗rÞ] is given by the ratio of the total electric energy to the maximum electric energy density [13],In typical PhC cavity designs, the minimum cavity mode volume is given by a half-wavelength bounding box, or3 [14], agreeing with the diffraction limit. However, as is clear from Eq. (1), the mode volume is determined by the electric energy density at the position where it is maximized. Thus, it is not strictly restricted by the diffraction limit. A strong local inhomogeneity in ϵð ⃗rÞ can greatly increase this electric energy density and correspondingly shrink the mode volume. Figure 1(a) plots the fundamental mode of a silicon-air one-dimensional PhC cavity produced by three-dimensional FDTD simulati...

A number of "top-down" lithographic and "bottom-up" self-assembly methods have been developed to fabricate three-dimensional (3D) nanostructures to support the recent advances in nanotechnology. But they are limited by a number of factors such as fabrication cost, pattern resolution, and/or flexibility of geometry. Here we present a 3D nanolithography process that utilizes self-assembled nanospheres to create a periodic array of focal spots, which are then replicated across multiple depth in a transparent medium according to the Talbot effect. The Talbot field then exposes a pattern onto the underlying photoresist, recording the 3D intensity distribution. We have demonstrated designable complex 3D periodic structures with 80 nm minimum feature size, roughly one-fourth of the operating wavelength. This approach combines 2D colloidal self-assembly and 3D phase lithography, is robust, cost-effective, and widely applicable to nanoscale research and manufacturing.

Note: This paper is part of the Special Topic on Materials, Methods, and Applications of Color Centers with Accessible Spin.

High sensitivity, fast response time and strong light absorption are the most important metrics for infrared sensing and imaging. The trade-off between these characteristics remains the primary challenge in bolometry. Graphene with its unique combination of a record small electronic heat capacity and a weak electron-phonon coupling has emerged as a sensitive bolometric medium that allows for high intrinsic bandwidths. Moreover, the material's light absorption can be enhanced to near unity by integration into photonic structures. Here, we introduce an integrated hot-electron bolometer based on Johnson noise readout of electrons in ultra-clean hexagonal-boron-nitride-encapsulated graphene, which is critically coupled to incident radiation through a photonic nanocavity with Q = 900. The device operates at telecom wavelengths and shows an enhanced bolometric response at charge neutrality. At 5 K, we obtain a noise equivalent power of about 10 pW Hz, a record fast thermal relaxation time, <35 ps, and an improved light absorption. However the device can operate even above 300 K with reduced sensitivity. We work out the performance mechanisms and limits of the graphene bolometer and give important insights towards the potential development of practical applications.