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Driven by new two-dimensional materials, great changes and progress have taken place in the field of ultrafast photonics in recent years. Among them, the emerging single element two-dimensional materials (Xenes) have also received much attention due to their special physical and photoelectric properties including tunable broadband nonlinear saturable absorption, ultrafast carrier recovery rate, and ultrashort recovery time. In this review, the preparation methods of Xenes and various integration strategies are detailedly introduced at first. Then, we summarize the outcomes achieved by Xenes-based (beyond graphene) fiber lasers and make classifications based on the characteristics of output pulses according to the materials characterization and nonlinear optical absorption properties. Finally, an outlook of the future opportunities and challenges of ultrafast photonics devices based on Xenes and other 2D materials are highlighted, and we hope this review will promote their extensive applications in ultrafast photonics technology.

Multilayer hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM)-based SERS substrates have received special consideration because they accommodate various propagation modes such as surface plasmonic polaritons (SPP). However, the SPP modes are difficult to generate in HMM due to their weak electric field enhancement. In this article, we designed novel SERS substrates consisting of graphene-covered AgNPs and HMM. The graphene-covered AgNPs work as an external coupling structure for hyperbolic metamaterials due to this structure exhibiting significant plasmonic effects as well as unique optical features. The localized surface plasmonic resonance (LSPR) of the graphene-covered AgNPs excited the SPP and thus formed a strong hot spot zone in the nanogap area of the graphene. The Raman experiment was performed using rhodamine 6G (R6G) and crystal violet (CV), which showed high stability and a maximum enhancement factor of 2.12 × 10

We investigate the nonlinear optical harmonic generation behaviors near the bound-states in the continuum (BICs) in hybrid plasmonic-photonic structures. The hybrid structures are designed to consist of a plasmonic grating covered with a nonlinear dielectric waveguide layer, which support two distinct groups of BICs, i.e. the symmetry-protected BICs and Friedrich-Wintgen BICs. The evolution of second- and third-harmonic generation (SHG and THG) near the two groups of BICs was studied. The high dependence of nonlinear response on the local field distribution and tensor components of susceptibility of nonlinear materials was determined. Especially, there exists optimized angles of incidence for efficient SHG and THG response due to the interaction of photonic and plasmonic modes. The results are important to understand the nonlinear response behaviors in hybrid plasmonic-photonic structures and to design the nonlinear photonic devices.

The electromagnetic fields distributed on the surface region of the nanostructure is very important to improve the performance of the sensor. Here, we proposed a highly sensitive sensor based on toroidal dipole (TD) governed by bound state in the continuum (BIC) in all-dielectric metasurface consisting of single non-coaxial core-shell cylinder nanostructure array. The excitation of TD resonance in a single nanostructure is still challenging. The designed nanostructure not only supports TD resonance in a single nanostructure but also has very high Q-factor. More importantly, its electric field distributes at the surface of outer cylinder-shell, which is very suitable for biosensing. To evaluate the sensing performance of our proposed structure, we investigated the sensitivity and the figure of merit (FOM) of nanostructure with different structural parameters. Maximum sensitivity and FOM can reach up to 342 nm/RIU and 1295 when the asymmetric parameter d =10 nm. These results are of great significance to the research of TD resonance and the development of ultrasensitive sensor.

The capability to support large wave vector bulk plasmon polariton (BPP) waves enables the application of hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) in sensing. However, there is a challenge arising from the excitation of BPP, and the highly confined polarization waves are unable to meet the requirements of practical application. In this study, an HMM/bilayer silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) platform is proposed that allows the excitation and utilization of BPP for use as a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate. According to the research results, the bilayer Ag NPs provide stronger plasmonic property and act as a light-matter coupler, so as to generate a large wave vector of scattered light and excite the BPP within the HMM. Besides, Ag NPs provide the nano antenna structure, and decouple the BPP into localized surface plasmon (LSP) that can be used directly to excite the electric fields. In addition, HMM produces a modulating effect on the plasmon resonance peak, which makes it possible to overlap the spectrum of resonance peak with excitation wavelengths, thus leading to a strong absorption peak at the incident laser wavelength region. Experimentally, the platform was applied to achieve SERS detection for adenosine molecules with a concentration of 10−6 M. It is believed that this plasmonic platform has a potential of application in surface-enhanced spectroscopy.

Tilted fiber Bragg grating (TFBG) is a widespread approach for developing refractive index (RI) sensors. The unique optoelectronic properties exhibited by MXene are expected to enhance the performance of TFBG-SPR sensors. In this study, a Ta

We demonstrate a simple, cost-effective method to enhance the photoluminescence intensity of monolayer MoS2. A hexagonal symmetric Au metasurface, made by polystyrene nanosphere lithography and metal coating, is developed to enhance the photoluminescence intensity of monolayer MoS2. By using nanospheres of different sizes, the localized surface plasmon resonances of the Au metasurfaces can be effectively tuned. By transferring monolayer MoS2 onto the Au metasurface, the photoluminescence signal of the monolayer MoS2 can be significantly enhanced up to 12-fold over a square-centimeter area. The simple, large-area, cost-effective fabrication technique could pave a new way for plasmon-enhanced light-mater interactions of atomically thin two-dimensional materials.

Highly efficient plasmon-driven catalysis and excellent surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) performance are proportional to the square of the local electromagnetic field (hot spot). However, a proven way to realize the enhancement in intensity and density of “hot spot” still needs to be investigated. Here, we report on multilayered Ag nanoparticle (Ag NP)/graphene coupled to an underlying Cu film system (MAgNP-CuF) which can be used as an effective SERS substrates realizing ultra-sensitive detection for toxic molecules and in situ monitoring the plasmon-driven reaction for p-nitrothiophenol (PNTP) to p,p′-dimercaptobenzene (DMAB) conversion. The mechanism of ultra-sensitive SERS response and catalytic reaction is investigated via Ag NP/graphene layer-dependent experiments combined with theoretical simulations. The research found that the intensity and density of “hot spot” can be effectively manipulated by the number of plasmonic layers, and the bottom Cu film could also reflect the scattered and excitation beam and would further enhance the Raman signals. Moreover, the MAgNP-CuF exhibits outstanding performance in stability and reproducibility. We believe that this concept of multilayered plasmonic structures would be widely used not only in the field of SERS but also in the wider research in photocatalysis.

Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) have attracted significant attention with regards to applications related to surface plasmon resonance (SPR) because of their heterodyne response induced by the multimode response and the high K-transfer mode (including transmission and dielectric ones) originated from their unique dispersive properties. However, most HMM-based applications related to fiber optic SPR are still at the theoretical simulation stages. This work reports the synthesis of HMMs using Ag and MgF2. The resulting HMMs were used to fabricate an SPR sensor based on D-type plastic optic fibers (D-POFs). The sensor oscillation modes were theoretically analyzed using the effective medium theory and COMSOL. The optimal synthesis conditions were when the metal filling fraction (ρ) and the number of bilayers (Nbi) were equal to 0.5 and 3, respectively. Experiments showed that at the ambient refractive index in the 1.34–1.356 RIU range, the HMMs/D-POF sensor possessed high sensitivity (1875 nm per RIU), excellent linear response (with the correlation coefficient R2 = 0.987), and reproducibility. Our sensor could also detect saccharin and 2, 6-di-tert-butyl-4-methyl phenol antioxidant 264 (BHT), both of which are toxic. Thus, both theoretical and experimental results showed the applicability of this sensor for real-life detection.

This article proposes an integrated high-sensitivity temperature sensor based on SiO2-asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometer (AMZI) and thermal-expansion-induced stress of aluminum-SiO2. Mechanical analysis of this structure is carried out. The result shows that the SiO2 chip is compressed, and the waveguide length is decreased, leading to the central wavelength shift of the sensor. The sensitivity of the sensor can be customized by different arm lengths of the AMZI. The chip is fabricated using a standard planar lightwave circuit (PLC), and the aluminum alloy plate is glued to the chip using $\alpha $ -cyanaloc acrylic resin adhesive. The sensitivities of two sensors with different arm lengths are tested. The test results show the sensitivity reaches 6.86 and 54.2 nm $\cdot \text{K}^{-1}$ , respectively, which coincides with the theoretical analysis. With low cost and customizable sensitivity, this new device is applicable in many fields.

In this paper, we designed a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrate for graphene/Ag nanoparticles (Ag NPs) bonded multilayer film (MLF) using the hybrid nanostructures composed of graphene and plasmonic metal components with significant plasmonic electrical effects and unique optical characteristics. This paper achieved the advantages of efficient utilization of electromagnetic field and reduction of fluorescence background based on the electromagnetic enhancement activity of Ag NPs and unique physical/chemical properties of graphene with zero gap structures. Au/Al2O3 was stacked periodically to construct MLF. As indicated by the electric field intensity at the Au/Al2O3 interface of the respective layer, bulk plasmon polariton (BPP) in the MLF was excited and coupled with localized surface plasmon (LSP) in the Ag NPs, which enhanced the electromagnetic field on the top-layer of SERS substrate. To measure the performance of the SERS substrate, rhodamine 6G (R6G) and malachite green (MG) were used as the probe molecules, with the detection limits of 10−11 M and 10−8 M, respectively. The SERS substrate had high sensitivity and uniformity, which indicated that it has a broad application prospect in the field of molecular detection.

Layered transition metal dichalcogenides with excellent nonlinear absorption properties have shown remarkable performance in acting as ultrafast photonics devices. In our work, palladium diselenide (PdSe2) nanosheets with competitive advantages of wide tunable bandgap, unique puckered pentagonal structure and excellent air stability are prepared by the liquid-phase exfoliation method. Its ultrafast absorption performance was verified by demonstrating conventional and dissipative soliton operations within Er-doped fiber lasers. The minimum pulse width of the conventional soliton was 1.19 ps. Meanwhile, dissipative soliton with a 46.67 mW output power, 35.37 nm spectrum width, 14.92 ps pulse width and 2.86 nJ pulse energy was also generated successfully. Our enhanced experiment results present the excellent absorption performance of PdSe2 and highlight the capacity of PdSe2 in acting as ultrafast photonics devices.

Two-dimensional layered monoelemental materials (Xenes) with excellent optoelectronic properties have various property-related applications, such as energy, biomedicine, and optoelectronic devices. Xenes also show excellent performance in acting as saturable absorbers (SAs) for obtaining ultrafast laser operations. Few-layer tellurene as a typical Xenens exhibits distinct optoelectronic properties and promising practical application potential, and its nonlinear optical absorption characteristics and related ultrafast modulation applications have been investigated preliminarily. However, tellurene-based SAs to demonstrate large-energy mode-locked operations, which have special applications in industrial and scientific research areas, are seldom studied. In this work, we focus on the preparation of tellurene-based SAs and explore its applications in demonstrating large-energy mode-locked operations [dissipative soliton (DS) and noise-like pulses (NLP)]. For DS operation, the maximum average output power, pulse width, and largest pulse energy are 23.61 mW, 5.87 ps, and 1.94 nJ, respectively. NLP operation with a recorded average output power of 106.6 mW and a pulse energy of 8.76 nJ is also generated, which shows significant enhancement in comparison to previously reported Xenes-based works. Our contribution reveals the great potential and capacity of tellurene-based SAs in obtaining large-energy pulse operations and further promotes the explorative investigation of Xenes-based optoelectronic devices.

Arrayed resonant cavity with outstanding optical trapping ability have received increasing attention in surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Here, a three-dimensional (3D) composite AgNPs-Al2O3/Au/inverted patterned sapphire substrate PMMA (IPSSPMMA) flexible resonant cavity system is theoretically and experimentally investigated as a flexible SERS sensor. With the help of an effective plasma coupling (localized surface plasmons (LSPs) and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs)), as shown by the Finite Element Method, a resonant cavity between IPSSPMMA and a particle-film nanostructure is created. Moreover, the proposed fabrication scheme can be easily used for large-scale fabrication. To measure the performance of IPSSPMMA, Rhodamine 6 G (R6G) and Crystalline violet (CV) were used as probe molecules with limit of detection (LOD) of 6.01 × 10−12 M and 5.36 × 10−10 M, respectively, and enhancement factors (EF) of R6G up to 8.6 × 109. Besides, in-situ detection of CV on the surface of aquatic products with a LOD of 3.96 × 10−5 M, enables highly sensitive in-situ detection of surface analytes. The Raman performance and in-situ detection results demonstrate that the proposed flexible compositing resonant cavity system has the advantages of ultra-sensitivity, stability, uniformity, and reproducibility, and has great potential for applications in the food safety field.

We demonstrated a passively Q-switched Er:Ca

We model optical bistability in all-dielectric guide-mode resonance grating (GMR) nanostructures working at quasi-bound states in the continuum (BICs). The complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible material silicon nitride (SiN) is used for the design of nanostructures and simulations. The ultra-low threshold of input intensity in the feasible nanostructure for nanofabrication is obtained at the level of ~100 W/cm2 driven by quasi-BICs. Additionally, the resonance wavelength in the GMR nanostructure can be widely tuned by incident angles with the slightly changed Q-factor that enables the optical bistable devices to work efficiently over a wide spectrum. The impact of the defects of grating that may be introduced in the fabrication process on the optical properties is discussed, and the tolerance of the defects to the optical performance of the device is confirmed. The results indicate that the GMR nanostructures of broadband and ultra-low threshold optical bistability driven by quasi-BICs are promising in the application of all-optical devices.

An optical sensor based on dual asymmetric Mach–Zehnder interferometers (AMZIs) cascade with temperature-independent is proposed. The optical sensor based on AMZI is very sensitive to the change of ambient temperature. The temperature shift will lead to the change of the refractive index of the optical waveguide, which will affect the accuracy of the measurement of target-parameters. The designed optical sensor is composed of two AMZIs cascaded, one acting as a sensing AMZI and the other as a compensating AMZI. When the temperature changes, the sensing curve of the sensing AMZI shifts. The compensating AMZI can make the sensing curve goes into reverse to realize the compensation. The error of compensation results is reduced by 2–3 orders of magnitude, the compensation temperature range is from 5 to 45 °C, and the error is reduced to

The rhenium disulphide (ReS

A high Q-factor of the nanocavity can effectively reduce the threshold of nanolasers. In this paper, a modified nanostructure composed of a silver grating on a low-index dielectric layer (LID) and a high-index dielectric layer (HID) was proposed to realize a nanolaser with a lower lasing threshold. The nanostructure supports a hybrid plasmonic waveguide mode with a very-narrow line-width that can be reduced to about 1.79 nm by adjusting the thickness of the LID/HID layer or the duty ratio of grating, and the Q-factor can reach up to about 348. We theoretically demonstrated the lasing behavior of the modified nanostructures using the model of the combination of the classical electrodynamics and the four-level two-electron model of the gain material. The results demonstrated that the nanolaser based on the hybrid plasmonic waveguide mode can really reduce the lasing threshold to 0.042 mJ/cm2, which is about three times lower than the nanolaser based on the surface plasmon. The lasing action can be modulated by the thickness of the LID layer, the thickness of the HID layer and the duty cycle of grating. Our findings could provide a useful guideline to design low-threshold and highly-efficient miniaturized lasers.

In this work, we theoretically present a reconfigurable plasmonic chiral metasurface based on a sandwiched metal–insulator–metal structure, which can strongly, spin-selectively absorb circularly polarized light. Through finite-difference time-domain simulation, the absorption of left- or right-handed circularly polarized light can reach nearly 100% at the resonant position, and the magnitude of the circular dichroism can be 80%, which is larger than most of the previously reported value. This strong chiroptical effect originates from plasmonic resonances induced by the incident circularly polarized light. Furthermore, the proposed plasmonic chiral metasurface is able to be reconfigurable by either changing its intrinsic or extrinsic chirality, which can be numerically confirmed by the change of the sign and magnitude of the CD. Such a reconfigurable plasmonic chiral metasurface could find many potential applications in chirality detection/sensing, polarimetric imaging, spin–orbit communications, etc.

An efficient electrospun aligned surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and maize-like substrate of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) composite and Ag colloid nanofibers decorated with thermal evaporated Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) has been developed by taking advantage of electrostatic interactions. The synergistic effects of the evaporated AgNPs (niblets) and the Ag colloid in PVA (corncob) could arouse strong electromagnetic field between the lateral and vertical nanogaps which has been demonstrated by experiment and finite-different time-domain (FDTD) simulation. In this experiment, the aligned nanofibers possesses an excellent sensitivity by detection of crystal violet (CV) and malachite green (MG) molecule at low concentration. Moreover, the proposed flexible SERS sensor was measured with outstanding uniformity and reproducibility. We also carried out in-situ electrospinning on a curved surface to detect the mixture of Sudan I, CV and MG molecule, which demonstrates that flexible SERS sensor, has enormous potential in accurate and in-situ detection on the complex geometric structure.

This study investigated the third-order nonlinear optical properties of amorphous silicon carbide (SiC) films prepared via magnetron sputtering at room temperature (RT) and annealed at 200 °C–800 °C. The third-order optical nonlinearity was investigated by Z-scan measurement at a wavelength of 1064 nm and a pulse duration of 25 ps. The self-defocusing behaviour was observed in a large nonlinear refractive index n2 ∼10−14 m2/W, which was five orders of magnitude larger than the value of SiC crystals. By fitting the open-aperture data of the Z-scan, we determined the two- and three-photon absorption in the SiC films prepared at RT and in the annealed samples, respectively. The different nonlinear absorption behaviour was probably ascribed to the intermediate states between the conduction and valence bands.

As the major energy molecule of cells, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) regulates various biological processes and has been found to be closely related to many diseases. Therefore, ATP detection in trace amounts is very useful for understanding various biological processes, studying cellular events such as proliferation and apoptosis, and estimating contaminated degree of food and medical instrument. To date, the trace sensing ATP at picomolar level in biological systems is still a major challenge. Because of unique electrical and structural properties, graphene has attracted much attention in biosensing applications. Here, a sensitive and selective graphene foam field-effect transistor (GF-FET) biosensor for ATP detection is demonstrated. The lowest detection limit of the biosensors for analyzing ATP is down to 0.5 pM, which is one or several orders lower than the reported results. Moreover, the GF-FET biosensor show a good linear current response to ATP concentrations in a broad range from 0.5 pM to 50 μM. The GF-FET sensor surface can be regenerated for many times and used for up to weeks without significant loss of functionality. Based on this sensing platform, label-free measurements of ATP concentrations in human serum as well as in cell lysate are demonstrated. The work may provide a novel platform to study ATP release and energy-regulated biological processes, suggesting a promising future for biosensing applications.