Electrical and Electronic Engineering - Research Publications

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    Mid-infrared spectral reconstruction with dielectric metasurfaces and dictionary learning
    Russell, BJ ; Cadusch, JJ ; Meng, J ; Wen, D ; Crozier, KB (Optica Publishing Group, 2022-05-15)
    Mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy has numerous industrial applications and is usually performed with Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers. While these work well for many purposes, there is currently much interest in alternative approaches that are smaller and lighter, i.e., MIR microspectrometers. Here we investigate all-dielectric metasurfaces as spectral filters for MIR microspectrometers. Two metasurface types are studied. For the first, we design, fabricate, and test a metasurface with a narrow and angularly tunable transmission stop band. We use it to reconstruct the transmission spectra of various materials. The second metasurface, investigated theoretically, possesses narrow passband features via symmetry-protected bound states in the continuum.
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    Compact Chemical Identifier Based on Plasmonic Metasurface Integrated with Microbolometer Array
    Meng, J ; Weston, L ; Balendhran, S ; Wen, D ; Cadusch, JJ ; Unnithan, RR ; Crozier, KB (WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH, 2022-04)
    Abstract The identification of chemicals from their mid‐infrared spectra has applications that include industrial production of chemicals, food production, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and environmental monitoring. This is generally done using laboratory benchtop tools, such as the Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. Although such systems offer high performance, alternative platforms offering reduced size, weight, and cost can enable a host of new applications, e.g. in consumer personal electronics. Here a compact microspectrometer platform for chemical identification, comprising a mid‐infrared metasurface integrated with a lightweight (≈1 g) and very small (≈1 cm3) microbolometer‐based thermal camera is experimentally demonstrated. A machine learning algorithm is trained to analyze the microspectrometer output and classify chemicals based on their mid‐infrared fingerprints. High accuracy identification of four liquid chemicals, concentration quantification of ethyl lactate in cyclohexane down to subpercentage levels, and the classification of food and drug samples is demonstrated.
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    Infrared modulation via near-room-temperature phase transitions of vanadium oxides & core–shell composites
    Taha, M ; Balendhran, S ; Sherrell, PC ; Kirkwood, N ; Wen, D ; Wang, S ; Meng, J ; Bullock, J ; Crozier, KB ; Sciacca, L (Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), 2023)
    Vanadium oxides (VOx) are highly promising materials for heat retardant coatings, enabled by their insulator-to-metal phase transition (IMT). Currently, this IMT typically occurs at 68 °C, well above room temperature. Here, we develop a dopant-free approach to lower the IMT temperature to ∼40 °C enabling near-room temperature infrared modulation, by simple, solution phase synthesis. This is achieved by both controlling the stoichiometry of the metal oxide and by using a SiO2 shell around the VOx particles, with the difference in thermal expansion coefficient between SiO2 and VOx inducing sufficient strain in the VOx to dramatically lower the IMT temperature. This approach enables the production of a functional solution of suspended VOx nanoparticles with near-room temperature IMT. The combination of near-room temperature IMT and solution phase nanoparticles dramatically increases the ease, scalability, and efficacy of VOx application.
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    Genetic optimization of mid-infrared filters for a machine learning chemical classifier.
    Tan, H ; Cadusch, JJ ; Meng, J ; Crozier, KB (Optica Publishing Group, 2022-05-23)
    Miniaturized mid-infrared spectrometers present opportunities for applications that range from health monitoring to agriculture. One approach combines arrays of spectral filters with infrared photodetectors, called filter-array detector-array (FADA) microspectrometers. A paper recently reported a FADA microspectrometer in tandem with machine learning for chemical identification. In that work, a FADA microspectrometer with 20 filters was assembled and tested. The filters were band-pass, or band-stop designs that evenly spanned the microspectrometer's operating wavelength range. However, given that a machine learning classifier can be trained on an arbitrary filter basis, it is not apparent that evenly spaced filters are optimal. Here, through simulations with noise, we use a genetic algorithm to optimize six bandpass filters to best identify liquid and gaseous chemicals. We report that the classifiers trained with the optimized filter sets outperform those trained with evenly spaced filter sets and those handpicked to target the absorption bands of the chemicals investigated.
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    Plasmonic Mid-Infrared Filter Array-Detector Array Chemical Classifier Based on Machine Learning
    Meng, J ; Cadusch, JJ ; Crozier, KB (AMER CHEMICAL SOC, 2021-02-17)
    Numerous applications exist for chemical detection, ranging from the industrial production of chemicals to pharmaceutical manufacturing, environmental monitoring, and hazardous risk control. For many applications, infrared absorption spectroscopy is the favored technique, due to attributes that include short response time, high specificity, minimal drift, in situ operation, negligible sample disruption, and reliability. The workhorse instrument for infrared absorption is the Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer. While such systems are suitable for many purposes, new applications would be enabled by small, lightweight, low power and low cost infrared microspectrometers. Here we perform a detailed study on a microspectrometer chemical classifier comprising an array of plasmonic mid-infrared spectral filters used with a photodetector array, whose outputs are analyzed by a machine learning algorithm. We conduct simulations (including noise), demonstrating the identification of six gas-phase and six liquid-phase chemicals. We study the performance of our method at detecting the concentration of acetylene.
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    VCSELs with On-Facet Metasurfaces for Polarization State Generation and Detection
    Wen, D ; Meng, J ; Cadusch, JJ ; Crozier, KB (WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH, 2021-05)
    Abstract Polarization plays a critical role in optical systems that range from optical communications to imaging, lithography, metrology, and data storage. Thus, in systems that need to generate a certain polarization state, a light source (e.g., laser) is combined with polarization control elements such as polarizers, polarizing beam splitters, and waveplates. Similarly, in systems requiring polarization state detection, such elements are combined with photodetectors. There is currently a trend toward miniaturized optical systems. This motivates the question of how to achieve what may be argued as an ultimate level of miniaturization: a single chip that can both generate light with a prescribed polarization state and detect the polarization state of light impinging upon it. This paper demonstrates this via vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) with on‐facet metasurfaces. Two classes of devices are demonstrated. The first class uses high‐index dielectric metasurfaces (amorphous silicon nanofins), whereas the second class uses plasmonic metasurfaces (aluminum bilayer gratings). Each can operate as a laser (to generate) and as a photodetector (to detect) circularly or linearly polarized light.
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    Vectorial Holograms with Spatially Continuous Polarization Distributions
    Wen, D ; Cadusch, JJ ; Meng, J ; Crozier, KB (AMER CHEMICAL SOC, 2021-02-24)
    Metasurface-based holography presents opportunities for applications that include optical displays, data storage, and optical encryption. Holograms that control polarization are sometimes referred to as vectorial holograms. Most studies on this topic have concerned devices that display different images when illuminated with different polarization states. Fewer studies have demonstrated holographic images whose polarization varies spatially, i.e., as a function of the position within the image. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a vectorial hologram that produces an image with a spatially continuous distribution of polarization states, for the first time to our knowledge. An unlimited number of polarization states can be achieved within the image. Furthermore, the holographic image and its polarization map (polarization vs position in image) are independent. The same image can be thus encoded with different polarization maps. As far as we know, our approach is conceptually new. We anticipate that it could broaden the application scope of metasurface holography.
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    Light field on a chip: metasurface-based multicolor holograms
    Wen, D ; Cadusch, JJ ; Meng, J ; Crozier, KB (SPIE-SOC PHOTO-OPTICAL INSTRUMENTATION ENGINEERS, 2021-03)
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    Visible to long-wave infrared chip-scale spectrometers based on photodetectors with tailored responsivities and multispectral filters
    Cadusch, JJ ; Meng, J ; Craig, BJ ; Shrestha, VR ; Crozier, KB (De Gruyter Open, 2020-09-01)
    Chip-scale microspectrometers, operational across the visible to long-wave infrared spectral region will enable many remote sensing spectroscopy applications in a variety of fields including consumer electronics, process control in manufacturing, as well as environmental and agricultural monitoring. The low weight and small device footprint of such spectrometers could allow for integration into handheld, unattended vehicles or wearable-electronics based systems. This review will focus on recent developments in nanophotonic microspectrometer designs, which fall into two design categories: (i) planar filter-arrays used in conjunction with visible or IR detector arrays and (ii) microspectrometers using filter-free detector designs with tailored responsivities, where spectral filtering and photocurrent generation occur within the same nanostructure.
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    Multifunctional Dielectric Metasurfaces Consisting of Color Holograms Encoded into Color Printed Images
    Wen, D ; Cadusch, JJ ; Meng, J ; Crozier, KB (Wiley, 2020-01-17)
    A hologram records the wavefront of light from an object, but it is usually not an image itself, and looks unintelligible under diffuse ambient light. Here a new paradigm to encode a color hologram onto a color printed image is experimentally demonstrated. The printed image can be directly viewed under white light illumination, while a low‐crosstalk color holographic image can be seen when the device is illuminated with red (R), green (G), and blue (B) laser beams. The device is a dielectric metasurface that consists of titanium dioxide (TiO2) cones on a glass substrate. The dimensions of the TiO2 cones are chosen to allow them to support visible‐wavelength resonances, thereby producing the desired reflection spectra and thus the color printed image. The detour phase method is furthermore used to encode the hologram into the metasurface. The approach is conceptually different from previously demonstrated color printed images or holograms and presents opportunities for optical document security and data storage applications.