Nondestructive Evaluation of Special Defects Based on Ultrasound Metasurface

We demonstrate the nondestructive evaluation by means of directional ultrasound emitted from a planar metasurface. The ultrasound metasurface is designed to generate the collimated and directional ultrasound efficiently in a planar configuration, which is endowed with the full-2π-range phase manipulation ability and high transmittance up to 80%. We employ the directional emission based on the ultrasound metasurface to innovate the traditional nondestructive evaluation methods, benefited from the freely controlled directivity and the superior fitness to sample surface of the planar metasurface. Merits of this innovative application are evidenced by the remarkable accuracy (higher than 98%) in the thickness evaluation, and precise detection (accuracy higher than 96%) of the special defect inside the V-shaped workpiece which is intractable to be inspected conventionally. The implementation of the metasurface-based directional ultrasound emission in the nondestructive evaluation bears the advantages of high coupling efficiency, superior fitness, high accuracy, and applicability to special defect, providing new solutions to the challenges in conventional defect detection and promotes the development in the nondestructive evaluation applications.

Manipulating the directional emission of monolayer semiconductors by dielectric nanoantenna arrays

Collective Mie resonances in silicon (Si) nanoparticle arrays (NPAs) feature low absorption losses and strong field enhancement extending to a large area. They provide a high-efficient scheme to manipulate the emission properties of monolayer semiconductors. However, the poor quality factor of the current reported Si NPA limits the performance of light-emitting devices. It is mainly due to the constituent materials of nanoparticles being amorphous or polycrystalline silicon, which have higher absorption coefficients in comparison with monocrystalline silicon (c-Si) among the visible band. This invited paper demonstrates a versatile technique to integrate the atomic layers onto the c-Si NPA. We show that our method can fully preserve the monolayer sample. We further investigate the directional emission tailored by the NPA with different diameters by combining back-focal-plane imaging and reciprocity simulations. The flexible tune of the geometry parameters of NPAs can offer many possibilities to control and manipulate the emission from monolayer semiconductors by engineering their photonic environments.

Direction dependent photon superbunching effect from an atomic array

The probability of correlated emission of fluorescent photons as a function of detection directions has been investigated. The model system comprises identical two-level atoms arranged in the form of a line. A weak laser field resonantly excites only one of the atoms in the line. Two interaction mechanisms, namely, the vacuum-induced dipole–dipole interaction and the collective spontaneous emission couple the system of atoms. The aim is to observe the emission of a set of photon twins synchronized in time. It is seen that strongly directional emission of pairs of photons can take place due to the interference between the emitters. These highly correlated pairs of photons can be observed in very precise geometric directions. The observation is made based on two different detection procedures. It is found that the superradiant photons always tend to be bunched along the same direction.