USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

University of Illinois

Government of the United States of America, As Represented by the Secretary of Commerce

Brian J Roxworthy

Todd H Stievater

Marcel W Pruessner

Vladimir Aksyuk

Kimani C Toussaint

Dmitry A Kozak

J Alexander Liddle

Abdul Monnag Bhuiya

Methods and apparatuses for mode conversion. An apparatus that includes a substrate, a first waveguide, a second waveguide, a micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) perturber, and a controller is provided. The first waveguide is formed on the substrate includes: (i) an input section, (ii) a bend section, and (iii) an output section. The second waveguide is also formed on the substrate and is disposed adjacent to a portion of the input section of the first waveguide. A portion of the second waveguide is separated from the input section of the first waveguide by a coupling gap. The perturber is disposed above the first waveguide and configured to move between a first position that is distal from a surface of the input section of the first waveguide and a second position that is closer to the surface of the input section of the first waveguide than the second position. The controller is configured to control a movement of the perturber between the first position and the second position. When the perturber is in the first position, a mode effective refractive index of the first waveguide is lower than the mode effective refractive index of the first waveguide when the perturber is in the second position.

Methods and apparatuses for optical mode conversion

A pillar-nanoantenna array structure is fabricated with a substrate to which pairs of pillars are coupled, where the pillars are characterized either by a thermal conductance less than 0.1 &#x3bc;W/deg or by transparency and a height exceeding thickness by at least a factor of two. Metallic caps atop a neighboring pair of pillars are separated by no more than 50 nm. An image-capture structure may be formed by modifying reflectance of a portion of the structure by heating of the portion by electromagnetic radiation. The array may be plastically deformed by raster scanning an electron beam across the array, exciting plasmon modes in the conducting particles thereby inducing a gradient force between neighboring conducting particles, and deforming neighboring pillars in such a manner as to vary the spacing separating neighboring conducting particles. A technique of plasmon-assisted etching provides for fabricating specified planar pattern of metal outside a cleanroom environment.

Bowtie nanoantennas and methods of using the same

A localized gap plasmon resonator includes: a pad including: a first plasmonic material to support a surface plasmon; and a first plasmon surface; a nanoelectromechanical (NEM) member disposed opposing the first plasmon surface of the pad and spaced apart from the pad by a plasmon gap, the plasmon gap supporting a plasmon resonance; and a plasmonic nanoprism disposed on the NEM member and including: a second plasmonic material to support a surface plasmon; and a second plasmon surface, such that: the second plasmon surface of the plasmonic nanoprism opposes the first plasmon surface of the pad; and the pad, the plasmonic nanoprism, and the plasmon gap support a localized gap plasmon (LGP) mode.

Localized gap plasmon resonator

Growing community of inventors

Chevy Chase, MD, United States of America

Brian J Roxworthy