Graphene plasmonic nanoresonators/graphene heterostructures for efficient room-temperature infrared photodetection

High-performance infrared(IR)photodetectors made by low dimensional materials promise a wide range of applications in communication,security and biomedicine.Moreover,light-harvesting effects based on novel plasmonic materials and their combinations with two-dimensional(2 D)materials have raised tremendous interest in recent years,as they may potentially help the device complement or surpass currently commercialized IR photodetectors.Graphene is a particularly attractive plasmonic material because graphene plasmons are electrically tunable with a high degree of electromagnetic confinement in the mid-infrared(mid-IR)to terahertz regime and the field concentration can be further enhanced by forming nanostructures.Here,we report an efficient mid-IR room-temperature photodetector enhanced by plasmonic effect in graphene nanoresonators(GNRs)/graphene heterostructure.The plasmon polaritons in GNRs are size-dependent with strong field localization.Considering that the size and density of GNRs are controllable by chemical vapor deposition method,our work opens a cost-effective and scalable pathway to fabricate efficient IR optoelectronic devices with wavelength tunability.

Facile magnetoresistance adjustment of graphene foam for magnetic sensor applications through microstructure tailoring

Graphene foam is becoming a material of choice for magnetoelectronic devices due to its large,linear and unsaturated room temperature magnetoresistance.However,the magnetoresistance of graphene foam is not as large as that of monolayer graphene.Herein,we describe how magnetoresistance^100%was detected at room temperature under a magnetic field of 5 T that is comparable to the magnetoresistance in monolayer graphene;the highest magnetoresistance of^158%was detected at 5 K under a magnetic field of 5 T.Unlike monolayer graphene,graphene foam is far more comfortable with producing in gram scale and utilizing in magnetoelectronic devices.

Anisotropic polaritons in van der Waals materials

Polaritons in two-dimensional(2D)materials continues to garner significant attention due to their favorable ability of field-confinement and intriguing potential for low-loss and ultrafast optical and photonic devices.The recent experimental observation of in-plane anisotropic dispersion in natural van der Waals materials has revealed much richer physics as compared to isotropic plasmonic materials,which provides new insight to manipulate the polaritons and manufacture flat optical devices with unprecedented controls.Herein,we give an overview of the recent progress in in-plane anisotropic polaritons launched and visualized in the near-field range in 2D layered van der Waals materials.Furthermore,future prospects in this promising but emerging field are featured on the basis of its peculiar applications.This review article will stimulate the scientific community to explore other hyperbolic materials and structures in order to develop optical technologies with novel functionalities and further improve the understanding of the exotic photonic phenomena.

Highly stable and repeatable femtosecond soliton pulse generation from saturable absorbers based on twodimensional Cu3-xP nanocrystals

Heavily doped colloidal plasmonic nanocrystals have attracted great attention because of their lower and adjustable free carrier densities and tunable localized surface plasmonic resonance bands in the spectral range from near-infra to mid-infra wavelengths.With its plasmon-enhanced optical nonlinearity,this new family of plasmonic materials shows a huge potential for nonlinear optical applications,such as ultrafast switching,nonlinear sensing,and pulse laser generation.Cu3-xP nanocrystals were previously shown to have a strong saturable absorption at the plasmonic resonance,which enabled high-energy Q-switched fiber lasers with 6.1μs pulse duration.This work demonstrates that both high-quality mode-locked and Q-switched pulses at 1560 nm can be generated by evanescently incorporating two-dimensional(2D)Cu3-xP nanocrystals onto a D-shaped optical fiber as an effective saturable absorber.The 3 dB bandwidth of the mode-locking optical spectrum is as broad as 7.3 nm,and the corresponding pulse duration can reach 423 fs.The repetition rate of the Q-switching pulses is higher than 80 kHz.Moreover,the largest pulse energy is more than 120μJ.Note that laser characteristics are highly stable and repeatable based on the results of over 20 devices.This work may trigger further investigations on heavily doped plasmonic 2D nanocrystals as a next-generation,inexpensive,and solution-processed element for fascinating photonics and optoelectronics applications.

Probing the dynamic structural changes of DNA using ultrafast laser pulse in graphene-based optofluidic device

The ultrafast monitoring of deoxyribonucleic acid(DNA)dynamic structural changes is an emerging and rapidly growing research topic in biotechnology.The existing optical spectroscopy used to identify different dynamical DNA structures lacks quick response while requiring large consumption of samples and bulky instrumental facilities.It is highly demanded to develop an ultrafast technique that monitors DNA structural changes with the external stimulus or cancer-related disease scenarios.Here,we demonstrate a novel photonic integrated graphene-optofluidic device to monitor DNA structural changes with the ultrafast response time.Our approach is featured with an effective and straightforward design of decoding the electronic structure change of graphene induced by its interactions with DNAs in different conformations using ultrafast nanosecond pulse laser and achieving refractive index sensitivity of~3×10^(−5) RIU.This innovative technique for the first time allows us to perform ultrafast monitoring of the conformational changes of special DNA molecules structures,including G-quadruplex formation by K+ions and i-motif formation by the low pH stimulus.The graphene-optofluidic device as presented here provides a new class of label-free,ultrafast,ultrasensitive,compact,and cost-effective optical biosensors for medical and healthcare applications.