Nanophotonics (Jan 2023)

Nano-kirigami enabled chiral nano-cilia with enhanced circular dichroism at visible wavelengths

  • Liu Xing,
  • Liang Qinghua,
  • Zhang Xiaochen,
  • Ji Chang-Yin,
  • Li Jiafang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1515/nanoph-2022-0543
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 8
pp. 1459 – 1468

Abstract

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Nano-kirigami method enables rich diversity of structural geometries that significantly broaden the functionalities of optical micro/nano-devices. However, the methodologies of various nano-kirigami are still limited and as a result, the chiral nano-kirigami structure has yet been pushed to the limit for operation at visible wavelength region. Here, the merits of the various nano-kirigami strategies are comprehensively explored and bio-inspired nano-cilia metasurface with enhanced circular dichroism at visible wavelengths is demonstrated. The stereo chiral nano-cilia metasurface is designed with three-fold rotational symmetry, which exhibits tuneable chiroptical responses when the nano-cilia are deformed to form strong chiral light–matter interactions. By employing electron-beam lithography (EBL) and focused ion beam (FIB) lithography, on-chip nano-cilia metasurfaces are experimentally realized in near-infrared wavelengths region and at visible wavelengths, respectively, successfully validating the giant circular dichroism revealed in simulations. Our work is useful to broaden the existing platform of micro/nano-scale manufacturing and could provide an effective method for the realization of versatile bioinspired nanostructures with profound chiroptical responses.

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