Phoxonic crystals—a new platform for chemical and biochemical sensors

Imaging phonon eigenstates and elucidating the energy storage characteristics of a honeycomb-lattice phononic crystal cavity

We extend gigahertz time-domain imaging to a wideband investigation of the eigenstates of a phononic crystal cavity. Using omnidirectionally excited phonon wave vectors, we implement an ultrafast technique to experimentally probe the two-dimensional acoustic field inside and outside a hexagonal cavity in a honeycomb-lattice phononic crystal formed in a microscopic crystalline silicon slab, thereby revealing the confinement and mode volumes of phonon eigenstates-some of which are clearly hexapole in character-lying both inside and outside the phononic-crystal band gap. This allows us to obtain a quantitative measure of the spatial acoustic energy storage characteristics of a phononic crystal cavity. We also introduce a numerical approach involving toneburst excitation and the monitoring of the acoustic energy decay together with the integral of the Poynting vector to calculate the Q factor of the principal in-gap eigenmode, showing it to be limited by ultrasonic attenuation rather than by phonon leakage to the surrounding region.

Photo-Elastic Enhanced Optomechanic One Dimensional Phoxonic Fishbone Nanobeam

We investigated the strength of acousto-optical (AO) interaction in one-dimensional fishbone silicon nanobeam computationally. The structure can generate phononic and photonic band gaps simultaneously. We use defect cavity optical mode and slow light mode to interact with acoustic defect modes. The AO coupling rates are obtained by adding the optical frequency shifts, which result from photo-elastic effect and moving-boundary effect disturbances. The AO coupling rates are strongly dependent on the overlap of acoustic and optical mode distribution. The strength of AO interaction can be enhanced by choosing certain acoustic defect modes that are formed by the stretching of wings and that overlap significantly with optical fields.

Dirac cones with zero refractive indices in phoxonic crystals

In this paper, simultaneous zero refractive indices (ZRIs) for both sound and light are realized on the basis of a 2D triangular lattice phoxonic crystal (PxC) with C_6v symmetry. For the phononic mode, accidental phononic Dirac degeneracy at the center of Brillouin zone (BZ) occurs at a relatively high frequency which leads to the failure of the efficient medium theory; hence, it is no longer applicable to the realization of acoustic ZRI. We thus turn to a low-frequency phononic Dirac cone located at K point, the corner of the BZ, which shows in-phase pressure field oscillations in expanded unit cells. Using zone folding, we further reveal the cause for the characteristic of acoustic ZRI. For the photonic mode, a low-frequency photonic Dirac-like cone can be achieved by adjusting the geometric parameter due to the high contrast permittivity between scatterers and the matrix. When the phononic and photonic low-frequency Dirac dispersions coexist, the PxC can be mapped into a zero-index material for both sound and light at the same time. The new mechanism for simultaneously controlling sound and light helps to achieve acousto-optic synchronous cloaking and unidirectional transmission, which are numerically demonstrated.

Milk as a Complex Multiphase Polydisperse System: Approaches for the Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

Milk is a product that requires quality control at all stages of production: from the dairy farm, processing at the dairy plant to finished products. Milk is a complex multiphase polydisperse system, whose components not only determine the quality and price of raw milk, but also reflect the physiological state of the herd. Today’s production volumes and rates require simple, fast, cost-effective, and accurate analytical methods, and most manufacturers want to move away from methods that use reagents that increase analysis time and move to rapid analysis methods. The review presents methods for the rapid determination of the main components of milk, examines their advantages and disadvantages. Optical spectroscopy is a fast, non-destructive, precise, and reliable tool for determination of the main constituents and common adulterants in milk. While mid-infrared spectroscopy is a well-established off-line laboratory technique for the routine quality control of milk, near-infrared technologies provide relatively low-cost and robust solutions suitable for on-site and in-line applications on milking farms and dairy production facilities. Other techniques, discussed in this review, including Raman spectroscopy, atomic spectroscopy, molecular fluorescence spectroscopy, are also used for milk analysis but much less extensively. Acoustic methods are also suitable for non-destructive on-line analysis of milk. Acoustic characterization can provide information on fat content, particle size distribution of fat and proteins, changes in the biophysical properties of milk over time, the content of specific proteins and pollutants. The basic principles of ultrasonic techniques, including transmission, pulse-echo, interferometer, and microbalance approaches, are briefly described and milk parameters measured with their help, including frequency ranges and measurement accuracy, are given.

Phononic and photonic properties of shape-engineered silicon nanoscale pillar arrays

We report the results of Brillouin-Mandelstam spectroscopy and Mueller matrix spectroscopic ellipsometry of the nanoscale 'pillar with the hat' periodic silicon structures, revealing intriguing phononic and photonic-phoxonic-properties. It has been theoretically shown that periodic structures with properly tuned dimensions can act simultaneously as phononic and photonic crystals, strongly affecting the light-matter interactions. Acoustic phonon states can be tuned by external boundaries, either as a result of phonon confinement effects in individual nanostructures, or as a result of artificially induced external periodicity, as in the phononic crystals. The shape of the nanoscale pillar array was engineered to ensure the interplay of both effects. The Brillouin-Mandelstam spectroscopy data indicated strong flattening of the acoustic phonon dispersion in the frequency range from 2 GHz to 20 GHz and the phonon wave vector extending to the higher-order Brillouin zones. The specifics of the phonon dispersion dependence on the pillar arrays' orientation suggest the presence of both periodic modulation and spatial localization effects for the acoustic phonons. The ellipsometry data reveal a distinct scatter pattern of four-fold symmetry due to nanoscale periodicity of the pillar arrays. Our results confirm the dual functionality of the nanostructured shape-engineered structure and indicate a possible new direction for fine-tuning the light-matter interaction in the next generation of photonic, optoelectronic, and phononic devices.

Determination of 1-propanol, ethanol, and methanol concentrations in water based on a one-dimensional phoxonic crystal sensor

In this research, the photonic and phononic response of one-dimensional multilayer phoxonic crystals (PxCs) with normal incident of electromagnetic and acoustic waves is discussed. The presented design can work as a highly sensitive sensor for measuring three binary alcohol/water mixtures (i.e., 1-propanol/water, ethanol/water, and methanol/water) for a wide range of concentrations. The PxC sensor is able to detect small changes in the refractive index and longitudinal sound velocity of the alcohol/water mixture with initially neglecting the acousto-optical interaction. The sensor design is a defective structure as [$({\rm Si}/{\rm SiO}_2)^4 (\rm mixture\;wt. \%) {({{\rm SiO}_2}/{\rm Si})^4}$(Si/SiO₂)⁴(mixturewt.%)(SiO₂/Si)⁴]. Also, we studied the effects of changing mixture concentrations from 0 wt. % to 100 wt. % on the physio-chemical parameters and resonant mode frequency. In our results, we have achieved high performance for the three alcohol mixtures in both phononic and photonic sensors especially for low concentrations. For example, in the photonic sensor we obtained sensitivity, $Q$Q value, and figure of merit of 873 nm/RIU, 755, and ${290}\;{{\rm RIU}^{ - 1}}$290RIU^-1, respectively, for methanol of concentration 10% in water. The phononic sensor showed higher results compared with the photonic sensor, as for ethanol with concentration 26.8% in water we obtained sensitivity, $Q$Q value, and figure of merit of ${37}\;{{\rm MHz/ms}^{ - 1}}$37MHz/ms^-1, 1604, and ${8.4}\;{({\rm m/s})^{ - 1}}$8.4(m/s)^-1, respectively. The proposed structure has different merits: operation at high temperatures, compact size, ease of fabrication, and feasibility of alcohol detection with two different methods that could be used in many chemical applications.

Narrow Band Solid-Liquid Composite Arrangements: Alternative Solutions for Phononic Crystal-Based Liquid Sensors

Periodic elastic composite structures attract great attention. They offer the ability to design artificial properties to advance the control over the propagation of elastic/acoustic waves. In previous work, we drew attention to composite periodic structures comprising liquids. It was shown that the transmission spectrum of the structure, specifically a well-isolated peak, follows the material properties of liquid constituent in a distinct manner. This idea was realized in several liquid sensor concepts that launched the field of phononic crystal liquid sensors. In this work we introduce a novel concept—narrow band solid-liquid composite arrangements. We demonstrate two different concepts to design narrow band structures, and show the results of theoretical studies and results of experimental investigations that confirm the theoretical predictions. This work extends prior studies in the field of phononic crystal liquid sensors with novel concepts and results that have a high potential in a field of volumetric liquid properties evaluation.

Synthesis of fluorescent dendrimers with aggregation-induced emission features through a one-pot multi-component reaction and their utilization for biological imaging

Hyperbranched polymers have attracted wide research attention owing to their unique topological structure, physicochemical properties and great potential for applications such asadditives, drug delivery, catalysts and nanotechnology. Among these, the polyamidoamine(PAMAM) dendrimers are some of the most important dendrimers. However, the synthesis and biomedical applications of fluorescent PAMAM dendrimers have received only limited attention. In this work, we present a rather effective and convenient approach for synthesis of fluorescent PAMAM dendrimers with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties through a one-pot catalyst-free Mannich reaction under rather mild experimental conditions (e.g., low reaction temperature, air atmosphere in the presence of water). The obtained AIE-active amphiphiles (PhE-PAD) could self-assemble into fluorescent organic nanoparticles (FONs). The obtained AIE-active FONs (PhE-PAD FONs) were fully characterized, and their successful construction was confirmed by ¹H NMR spectroscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy. Fluorescence and UV-Visible absorption spectroscopy results demonstrated that the final PhE-PAD FONs showed strong yellow fluorescence, desirable photostability and good water dispersity. The cell viability evaluation and confocal laser scanning microscope imaging results suggested that PhE-PAD FONs possessed low cytotoxicity and excellent biocompatibility. Taken together, these results demonstrate that we have developed a facile and efficient strategy for the fabrication of AIE-active FONs, which possess many desirable features for biomedical applications.

High-efficiency acousto-optic coupling in phoxonic resonator based on silicon fishbone nanobeam cavity

We investigate the acousto-optic coupling rates between different acoustic resonance modes and a specified optical resonance mode in a one-dimensional phoxonic crystal fishbone nanobeam formed by periodically arranging semi-cylinders of air on both sides of a suspended silicon waveguide. The gradually tapered unit cells form optical and acoustic resonators. In acousto-optic coupling rate calculation, the acoustic fields and optical fields are obtained by steady state monochromatic analysis and eigen-mode computation, respectively. Results showed that the acoustic polarizations and symmetries of the acoustic resonance modes are dominant factors in the acousto-optic coupling efficiency, and appropriate selection of these parameters can prevent cancellation of acousto-optic interactions, thereby enhancing acousto-optic coupling rates. This study provides important insights that can be applied to acousto-optic device designs.

High-mechanical-frequency characteristics of optomechanical crystal cavity with coupling waveguide

Optomechanical crystals have attracted great attention recently for their ability to realize strong photon-phonon interaction in cavity optomechanical systems. By far, the operation of cavity optomechanical systems with high mechanical frequency has to employ tapered fibres or one-sided waveguides with circulators to couple the light into and out of the cavities, which hinders their on-chip applications. Here, we demonstrate larger-centre-hole nanobeam structures with on-chip transmission-coupling waveguide. The measured mechanical frequency is up to 4.47 GHz, with a high mechanical Q-factor of 1.4 × 10³ in the ambient environment. The corresponding optomechanical coupling rate is calculated and measured to be 836 kHz and 1.2 MHz, respectively, while the effective mass is estimated to be 136 fg. With the transmission waveguide coupled structure and a small footprint of 3.4 μm², this simple cavity can be directly used as functional components or integrated with other on-chip devices in future practical applications.

Strong Optomechanical Coupling in Nanobeam Cavities based on Hetero Optomechanical Crystals

Nanobeam cavities based on hetero optomechanical crystals are proposed. With optical and mechanical modes separately confined by two types of periodic structures, the mechanical frequency is designed as high as 5.88 GHz. Due to the optical field and the strain field concentrated in the optomechanical cavity and resembling each other with an enhanced overlap, a high optomechanical coupling rate of 1.31 MHz is predicted.

Acousto-optical interaction of surface acoustic and optical waves in a two-dimensional phoxonic crystal hetero-structure cavity

Phoxonic crystal is a promising material for manipulating sound and light simultaneously. In this paper, we theoretically demonstrate the propagation of acoustic and optical waves along the truncated surface of a two-dimensional square-latticed phoxonic crystal. Further, a phoxonic crystal hetero-structure cavity is proposed, which can simultaneously confine surface acoustic and optical waves. The interface motion and photoelastic effects are taken into account in the acousto-optical coupling. The results show obvious shifts in eigenfrequencies of the photonic cavity modes induced by different phononic cavity modes. The symmetry of the phononic cavity modes plays a more important role in the single-phonon exchange process than in the case of the multi-phonon exchange. Under the same deformation, the frequency shift of the photonic transverse electric mode is larger than that of the transverse magnetic mode.