Ultra-long-working-distance spectroscopy of single nanostructures with aspherical solid immersion microlenses

Abstract

In light science and applications, equally important roles are played by efficient light emitters/detectors and by the optical elements responsible for light extraction and delivery. The latter should be simple, cost effective, broadband, versatile and compatible with other components of widely desired micro-optical systems. Ideally, they should also operate without high-numerical-aperture optics. Here, we demonstrate that all these requirements can be met with elliptical microlenses 3D printed on top of light emitters. Importantly, the microlenses we propose readily form the collected light into an ultra-low divergence beam (half-angle divergence below 1°) perfectly suited for ultra-longworking-distance optical measurements (600 mm with a 1-inch collection lens), which are not accessible to date with other spectroscopic techniques. Our microlenses can be fabricated on a wide variety of samples, including semiconductor quantum dots and fragile van der Waals heterostructures made of novel two-dimensional materials, such as monolayer and few-layer transition metal dichalcogenides.

Coherent dynamics of a single Mn-doped quantum dot revealed by four-wave mixing spectroscopy

“…At this point, we can combine more sophisticated and innovative photonic nanostructures, currently emerging for the CdTe-platform, 73 with QDs that can already contain a variety of different magnetic impurities. 37,43 These technological and spectroscopic advances open exciting prospects for coherent nonlinear spectroscopy of hybrid exciton-spin systems in semiconductor nanostructures.…”

Optical Trapping, Sensing, and Imaging by Photonic Nanojets

“…Microsphere lenses can be prepared by a variety of materials and methods [124][125][126][127], allowing high-resolution optical imaging of solid nanostructures at very low light intensities. As shown in Figure 7a, Wang et al used SiO 2 microspheres with a diameter of 4.74 µm to image a gold-plated porous anodic aluminum oxide film with a diameter of 50 nm under white light conditions [44].…”

Square Maxwell’s fish-eye lens for near-field broadband achromatic super-resolution imaging

“…On the other hand, utilizing total internal reflection (TIR) happening at the interface to excite evanescent waves, solid immersion lenses (SILs) [9,10] were suggested to overcome the diffraction limit for super-resolution imaging. They have been studied widely through the application of high refractive-index (RI) solid material and specific geometric optical design [11][12][13] . With the development of materials sciences, different types of SILs were designed and fabricated from conventional structures to novel metamaterials structures [14][15][16] .…”