In-materio reservoir working at low frequencies in a Ag2S-island network

A Ag₂S-island network is fabricated with surrounding electrodes to enable it to be used as a reservoir for unconventional computing. Local conductance change occurs due to the growth/shrinkage of Ag filaments from/into each Ag₂S island in the reservoir. The growth/shrinkage of Ag filaments is caused by the drift of Ag⁺ cations in each Ag₂S island, which results in a unique non-linear response as a reservoir, especially at lower frequencies. The response of the reservoir is shown to depend on the frequency and amplitude of the input signals. So as to evaluate its capability as a reservoir, logical operations were performed using the subject Ag₂S-island network, with the results showing an accuracy of greater than 99%.

Quantum Plasmonics: Energy Transport Through Plasmonic Gap

At the interfaces of metal and dielectric materials, strong light-matter interactions excite surface plasmons; this allows electromagnetic field confinement and enhancement on the sub-wavelength scale. Such phenomena have attracted considerable interest in the field of exotic material-based nanophotonic research, with potential applications including nonlinear spectroscopies, information processing, single-molecule sensing, organic-molecule devices, and plasmon chemistry. These innovative plasmonics-based technologies can meet the ever-increasing demands for speed and capacity in nanoscale devices, offering ultrasensitive detection capabilities and low-power operations. Size scaling from the nanometer to sub-nanometer ranges is consistently researched; as a result, the quantum behavior of localized surface plasmons, as well as those of matter, nonlocality, and quantum electron tunneling is investigated using an innovative nanofabrication and chemical functionalization approach, thereby opening a new era of quantum plasmonics. This new field enables the ultimate miniaturization of photonic components and provides extreme limits on light-matter interactions, permitting energy transport across the extremely small plasmonic gap. In this review, a comprehensive overview of the recent developments of quantum plasmonic resonators with particular focus on novel materials is presented. By exploring the novel gap materials in quantum regime, the potential quantum technology applications are also searched for and mapped out.

Digital image analysis for measuring nanogap distance produced by adhesion lithography

A simple digital image analysis for measuring nanogap distance produced by adhesion lithography is proposed. Adhesion lithography produces metal electrodes with sub-15 nm undulated space and μm to mm scale width without using electron beam lithography. Although the process has been rapidly improved in recent years, there has been no generalized procedure to evaluate the nanogap distance. In this study, we propose a procedure to evaluate a nanogap electrode with large width/gap distance ratios (>1000). The procedure is to determine the average distance of nanogap space from the area and the perimeter of the space by the analysis of the grayscale image. This procedure excludes any arbitrariness of the estimation and gives quantitative comparison of nanogap electrodes produced by different processes.