We present our latest work and investigation of exceptional point in plasmonic nanostructures. We show that the non-Hermitian singularity can be effectively deployed in small scale sensors and pave the path for engineering metamaterials with novel properties.

We have demonstrated the first plasmonic exceptional points (EPs) at subwavelength scale. The plasmonic EPs are based on the hybridization of detuned resonances in multilayered plasmonic crystals to reach a critical complex coupling rate between nanoantennas arrays, and, exhibit the dispersion of exceptional points around the non-Hermitian singularity and enhanced nanosensing was observed. The ability to drive plasmons to EPs lays the foundation to explore topological physics at small scales and to novel sensors and optoelectronic devices based on topological polaritonic effects

Planar structured interfaces, also known as metasurfaces, are continuously attracting interest owing to their ability to manipulate fundamental attributes of light, including angular momentum, phase, or polarization. However, chromatic aberration, limiting broadband operation, has remained a challenge for metasurfaces-based optical components and imagers. The limitation stems from the intrinsic dispersion of existing materials and design principles. Here we report and experimentally demonstrate polarization-independent fishnet-achromatic-metalenses with measured average efficiencies over 70% in the continuous band from the visible (640 nm) to the infrared (1200 nm). Results of the scalable platform are enabling for applications requiring broad bandwidth and high efficiency including energy harvesting, virtual reality and information processing devices, or medical imaging.

One of the key challenges in biology is to understand how individual cells process information and respond to perturbations. However, most of the existing single-cell analysis methods can only provide a glimpse of cell properties at specific time points and are unable to provide cell secretion and protein analysis at single-cell resolution. To address the limits of existing methods and to accelerate discoveries from single-cell studies, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a new sensor based on bound states in the continuum to quantify exosome secretion from a single cell. Our optical sensors demonstrate high-sensitivity refractive index detection. Because of the strong overlap between the medium supporting the mode and the analytes, such an optical cavity has a figure of merit of 677 and sensitivity of 440 nm/RIU. Such results facilitate technological progress for highly conducive optical sensors for different biomedical applications.

Singularities of open systems, known as exceptional points (EPs), have been shown to exhibit increased sensitivities, but the observation of EPs has so far been limited to wavelength-scaled systems subject to the diffraction limit. Plasmons, the collective oscillations of free electrons coupled to photons, shrink the wavelength of light to electronic and molecular length scales. We propose a novel approach to EPs based on spatial symmetry breaking and report their observation in plasmonics at room temperature. The plasmonic EPs are based on the hybridization of detuned resonances in multilayered plasmonic structures to reach a critical complex coupling rate between nanoantenna arrays, resulting in the simultaneous coalescence of the resonances and loss rates. Their utility as sensors of anti-immunoglobulin G, the most abundant immunoglobulin isotype in human serum, is evaluated. Our work opens the way to a new class of nanoscale devices, sensors and imagers based on topological polaritonic effects. The hybridized modes of an asymmetric plasmonic dimer show avoided crossing of both the real and imaginary parts. This can lead to plasmonic exceptional points, which are used for biosensing with very high sensitivity.

We propose a novel approach to EPs and report their first observation in plasmonics at room temperature. Enhanced sensing of anti-Immunoglobulin G (attomolar detection), the most common antibody found in blood circulation, is reported.

We propose a novel approach to EPs based on spatial symmetry breaking and report their observation in plasmonics at room temperature. The sensing of anti-Immunoglobulin G, the most common antibody found in blood circulation, is evaluated.

We report and experimentally demonstrate polarization-independent fishnet-achromatic-metalenses with measured average efficiencies over 70% in the continuous band from the visible (640 nm) to the infrared (1200 run).

We propose a passive plasmonic nanostructures operating at an exceptional point (EP), which get enhanced sensitivity with small external perturbation. EP plasmonic sensor will pave the way to highly sensitive plasmonic devices.

Orbital angular momentum is a fundamental degree of freedom of light that manifests itself even at the single photon level. The coherent generation and beaming of structured light usually requires bulky and slow components. Using wave singularities known as bound states in continuum, we report an integrated device that simultaneously generates and beams powerful coherent beams carrying orbital angular momentum. The device brings unprecedented opportunities in the manipulation of micro-particles and micro-organisms, and, will also find applications in areas such as biological sensing, microscopy, astronomy, and, high-capacity communications.

Conventional optical components have been proposed to realize high-quality line focusing with uniform intensity distribution such as cylindrical lenses, segmented wedge-arrays, or a combination of prisms and spherical mirrors. Numerous factors such as the manufacturing tolerances or the need for precise alignment of conventional lenses cause wave front aberrations that impact the performance of optical systems. These aforementioned limitations affect the uniformity of the intensity distribution and the intercept factor of lenses. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an integrable planar dielectric cylindrical lens made of titanium dioxide for uniform line focusing and discuss the sensitivity of its performance to fabrication imperfections originating from non-ideal geometrical parameters. The lens has a numerical aperture of 0.247, an intercept factor of 0.85, and an efficiency of 79% at 800 nm.

Conventional optical components have been proposed to realize high-quality line focusing with uniform intensity distribution such as cylindrical lenses, segmented wedge-arrays, or a combination of prisms and spherical mirrors. However, numerous factors such as the manufacturing tolerances of conventional lenses or the need for precise alignment of the lenses cause wavefront aberrations that impact the performance of optical systems. These aforementioned limitations of conventional optical components affect the uniformity of the intensity distribution. Here, we numerically and experimentally demonstrate an integrable planar all-dielectric cylindrical lens for uniform line focusing. The lens has a NA of 0.247 and a measured uniformity of 0.92

Using full wave simulations and a transmission matrix approach, we design and then realize random metasurface lenses with anisotropic nanorods, and show that we can obtain a diffraction limited focal spot for all polarizations.

We propose a passive plasmonic nanostructures sensor operated at an exceptional point (EP), that fundamentally shift more than conventional resonances and will pave the way to highly sensitive plasmonic devices.

Steering the beam of a wave source has been demonstrated using mechanical and non-mechanical techniques. While mechanical techniques are bulky and slow, non-mechanical techniques rely on breaking the symmetry of the refractive index profile either using asymmetric structure or injecting a non-uniform current. In this contribution, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrated a new type of topological steering of light sources in which the phase offset is provided by Floquet-Bloch phase in periodic structure. It was shown that in periodic structures, there exist singular states in the radiation region of the band diagram that exhibit diverging quality factor. Thus light sources can operate at these states with lower power threshold. The existence of these singular states are topologically protected, and their momentum are very sensitive to any small perturbations, which is used to control the steering angle. By uniformly controlling some parameters in the system, such as a physical dimension or injecting current uniformly, the beam of the light source steers. Our experimental demonstrations open new paradigm in the implementation of light steering with applications in data communications, bio imaging and sensing.

We present progress on the experimental observation of exceptional points (EPs) in passive plasmonic nanostructures. The system has EPs which are degeneracies in open wave systems where at least two energy levels and their corresponding eigenstates coalesce. They manifest themselves by the simultaneous degeneracy of both resonant frequencies and its linewidths. We consider a plasmonic system based on a multilayer plasmonic structure with structural offset [1, 2]. The realization of an EP via hybridized modes requires the control of at least two physical parameters. The two parameters used for the above system to reach an EP are the shift between bars and the periodicity.

We demonstrated theoretically and experimentally a Bound State in the Continuum Surface Emitting Laser that operates at room temperature and it can steer the beam with an angle depending on the topology of structure.

We demonstrated the Bound State in the Continuum Surface Emitting Laser that can steer the beam with angles depending on the topology. This novel type of the topological light source operates at room temperature.

Using full wave simulations and a transmission matrix approach, we design and then realize random metasurface lenses with anisotropic nanorods, and show that we can obtain a diffraction limited focal spot for all polarizations.

Plasmonic/metamaterial sensors are being investigated for their high sensitivity, fast response time, and high accuracy. We propose, characterize and experimentally realize subwavelength bilayer metamaterial sensors operating in the near-infrared domain. We measure the figure-of-merit (FOM) and the bulk sensitivity (S) of the two fundamental hybridized modes and demonstrate both numerically and experimentally that the magnetic dipolar mode, degenerate with the electric quadrupolar mode, has higher sensitivity to a variation of the refractive index compared to the electric dipolar mode. In addition, the hybridized system exhibits a four fold increase in the FOM compared to a standard dipolar plasmonic system.