We present a novel type of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate constituted of a 3-dimensinal polymeric inverse opal (IO) photonic crystal frame with gold nanorods (Au-NRs) decorating on the top layer. This substrate employs resonant excitation as well as constructive backward scattering of Raman signals to produce large enhancement of SERS output. For the incoming excitation, Au-NRs with appropriate aspect ratio were adopted to align their longitudinal localized surface plasmon band with the excitation laser wavelength. For the outgoing SERS signal, the spectral position of the photonic band gap was tuned to reflect Raman-scattered light constructively. This SERS substrate produces not only strong but also uniform SERS output due to the well control of Au-NRs distribution by the periodic IO structure, readily suitable for sensing applications.

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We report a wideband and polarization-/wide-angle insensitive metamaterial absorber based on a symmetry structure associated with surface mount resistors. The proposed structure consists of a periodic array of a top metal symmetry resonator loading with four lumped resistors and a continuous metal ground plane separated by a dielectric substrate of FR-4. A prototype of the proposed absorber is fabricated and measured, confirming a good agreement between the measurement and simulation results. The proposed absorber shows polarization-insensitive behavior and the absorption response in a frequency range from 8-18 GHz covering the entire X-and Ku-bands with an absorptivity above 80% for a wide incident angle up to 40 o for both transverse electric and transverse magnetic polarizations. Compared with the reported broadband absorbers using lumped resistors, our proposed absorber exhibits excellent characteristics in terms of compact and simple structure, high relative absorption bandwidth, and polarization and wide-incident insensitivity. Therefore, this design shows promising potential for both X-and Ku-band applications.

High-quality photonic crystals of SiO 2 spheres and air spheres are fabricated using self-assembling processes and infiltration method with thermal-assistant cell method. Their photonic band structures are characterised by reflectivity spectra measurements. It shows that the tunable optical stop bands are determined by refractive index contrast, diameter of spheres and angle of light illumination. The experimental results of reflectivity spectra agree very well with the results obtained by theoretical Bragg diffraction and photonic band calculations.