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Biomedical subjects

Mark L Brongersma

Publications and source records attributed to Mark L Brongersma.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Tunable light emission from quantum-confined excitons in TiSi2-catalyzed silicon nanowires.

Visible and near-infrared photoluminescence (PL) at room temperature is reported from Si nanowires (NWs) grown by chemical vapor deposition from TiSi2 catalyst sites. NWs grown with average diameter of 20 nm were etched and oxidized to thin and passivate the wires. The PL emission blue shifted continuously with decreasing nanowire diameter. Slowed oxidation was observed for small nanowire diameters and provides a high degree of control over the emission wavelength. Transmission electron microscopy, PL, and time-resolved PL data are fully consistent with quantum confinement of charge carriers in the Si nanowire core being the source of luminescence. These light emitting nanowires could find application in future CMOS-compatible photonic devices.

Catalysis↗
PubMed2006

Probing molecular junctions using surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy.

The optical absorption spectra of nanometer-thick organic films and molecular monolayers sandwiched between two metal contacts have been measured successfully using surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy (SPRS). The electric field within metal-insulator (organic)-metal (MIM) cross-bar junctions created by surface plasmon-polaritons excited on the metal surface allows sensitive measurement of molecular optical properties. Specifically, this spectroscopic technique extracts the real and imaginary indices of the organic layer for each wavelength of interest. The SPRS sensitivity was calculated for several device architectures, metals, and layer thicknesses to optimize the organic film absorptivity measurements. Distinct optical absorption features were clearly observed for R6G layers as thin as a single molecular monolayer between two metal electrodes. This method also enables dynamic measurement of molecular conformation inside metallic junctions, as shown by following the optical switching of a thin spiropyran/polymer film upon exposure to UV light. Finally, optical and electrical measurements can be made simultaneously to study the effect of electrical bias and current on molecular conformation, which may have significant impact in areas such as molecular and organic electronics.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Design of a silicon-based field-effect electro-optic modulator with enhanced light-charge interaction.

A new design for an all-silicon field-effect optical modulator in a ring resonator geometry is proposed and modeled by means of finite-element method simulations. It is shown that the optimal relative placement of the ultrathin field-effect-generated charge layers and the optical mode in the strong-confinement waveguides leads to more than an order-of-magnitude enhancement in the light-charge interaction compared with the recent predictions in the literature. We show that such an enhancement could provide optical modulation with a >7 dB extinction-ratio using a voltage swing of only 2 V, thus making our design compatible with complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2005

Dielectric waveguide model for guided surface polaritons.

Although surface polariton modes supported by finite-width interfaces can guide electromagnetic energy in three dimensions, we demonstrate for the first time to our knowledge that such modes can be modeled by the solutions of two-dimensional dielectric slab waveguides. An approximate model is derived by a ray-optics interpretation that is consistent with previous investigations of the Fresnel relations for surface polariton reflection. This model is compared with modal solutions for metal stripe waveguides obtained by full vectorial magnetic-field finite-difference methods. The field-symmetric modes of such waveguides are shown to be in agreement with the normalized dispersion relationship for analogous TE modes of dielectric slab waveguides. Lateral confinement is investigated by comparison of power-density profiles, and implications for the diffraction limit of guided polariton modes are discussed.

Journal Article↗
PubMed2004

Geometries and materials for subwavelength surface plasmon modes.

Plasmonic waveguides can guide light along metal-dielectric interfaces with propagating wave vectors of greater magnitude than are available in free space and hence with propagating wavelengths shorter than those in vacuum. This is a necessary, rather than sufficient, condition for subwavelength confinement of the optical mode. By use of the reflection pole method, the two-dimensional modal solutions for single planar waveguides as well as adjacent waveguide systems are solved. We demonstrate that, to achieve subwavelength pitches, a metal-insulator-metal geometry is required with higher confinement factors and smaller spatial extent than conventional insulator-metal-insulator structures. The resulting trade-off between propagation and confinement for surface plasmons is discussed, and optimization by materials selection is described.

Computer Simulation↗