Institut Fresnel

Abstract Recent years have seen a growing interest in using metal nanostructures to control temperature on the nanoscale. Under illumination at its plasmonic resonance, a metal nanoparticle features enhanced light absorption, turning it into an ideal nano‐source of heat, remotely controllable using light. Such a powerful and flexible photothermal scheme is the basis of thermo‐plasmonics . Here, the recent progress of this emerging and fast‐growing field is reviewed. First, the physics of heat generation in metal nanoparticles is described, under both continuous and pulsed illumination. The second part is dedicated to numerical and experimental methods that have been developed to further understand and engineer plasmonic‐assisted heating processes on the nanoscale. Finally, some of the most recent applications based on the heat generated by gold nanoparticles are surveyed, namely photothermal cancer therapy, nano‐surgery, drug delivery, photothermal imaging, protein tracking, photoacoustic imaging, nano‐chemistry and optofluidics.

In this paper we present the first results on emission in metamaterial. We show how the specific properties of metallic composite material can modify the emission of an embedded source. We show that under proper conditions the energy radiated by a source embedded in a slab of metamaterial will be concentrated in a narrow cone in the surrounding media. An experimental demonstration of this effect is given in the microwave domain, and the constructed antenna has a directivity equivalent to the best reported results with photonic-crystal-based antennas but using a completely different physical principle [B. Temelkuaran, J. Appl. Phys. 87, 603 (2000)]].

Noble metal nanoparticles supporting plasmonic resonances behave as efficient nanosources of light, heat and energetic electrons. Owing to these properties, they offer a unique playground to trigger chemical reactions on the nanoscale. In this tutorial review, we discuss how nanoplasmonics can benefit chemistry and review the most recent developments in this new and fast growing field of research.

We show that extraordinary light transmission of periodic subwavelength hole arrays, generally attributed to surface-plasmon resonances, is strongly influenced by the hole shape. Both experiments and calculations, based on a Fourier modal method, demonstrate that a shape change from circular to rectangular increases the normalized transmission by an order of magnitude while the hole area decreases. Moreover, the spectra exhibit large redshifts (approximately 2500 cm(-1)). A comparison with the transmission of isolated holes shows that shape resonances of the rectangular holes play a dominant role.

Materials engineered at the micro- and nanometer scales have had a tremendous and lasting impact in photonics and phononics. At much larger scales, natural soils civil engineered at decimeter to meter scales may interact with seismic waves when the global properties of the medium are modified, or alternatively thanks to a seismic metamaterial constituted of a mesh of vertical empty inclusions bored in the initial soil. Here, we show the experimental results of a seismic test carried out using seismic waves generated by a monochromatic vibrocompaction probe. Measurements of the particles' velocities show a modification of the seismic energy distribution in the presence of the metamaterial in agreement with numerical simulations using an approximate plate model. For complex natural materials such as soils, this large-scale experiment was needed to show the practical feasibility of seismic metamaterials and to stress their importance for applications in civil engineering. We anticipate this experiment to be a starting point for smart devices for anthropic and natural vibrations.

We adapt tools of transformation optics, governed by a (elliptic) wave equation, to thermodynamics, governed by the (parabolic) heat equation. We apply this new concept to an invibility cloak in order to thermally protect a region (a dead core) and to a concentrator to focus heat flux in a small region. We finally propose a multilayered cloak consisting of 20 homogeneous concentric layers with a piecewise constant isotropic diffusivity working over a finite time interval (homogenization approach).

It was recently shown theoretically that the time-dependent heat conduction equation is form invariant under curvilinear coordinate transformations. Thus, in analogy to transformation optics, fictitious transformed space can be mapped onto (meta)materials with spatially inhomogeneous and anisotropic heat-conductivity tensors in the laboratory space. On this basis, we design, fabricate, and characterize a microstructured thermal cloak that molds the flow of heat around an object in a metal plate. This allows for transient protection of the object from heating while maintaining the same downstream heat flow as without object and cloak.

Phase imaging with a high-resolution wavefront sensor is considered. This is based on a quadriwave lateral shearing interferometer mounted on a non-modified transmission white-light microscope. The measurement technology is explained both in the scope of wave optics and geometrical optics in order to discuss its implementation on a conventional microscope. In particular we consider the effect of a non spatially coherent source on the phase-image signal-to-noise ratio. Precise measurements of the phase-shift introduced by microscopic beads or giant unilamellar vesicles validate the principle and show the accuracy of the methods. Diffraction limited images of living COS-7 cells are then presented, with a particular focus on the membrane and organelle dynamics.

Control of waves with metamaterials is of great topical interest, and is fueled by rapid progress in broadband acoustic and electromagnetic cloaks. We propose a design for a cloak to control bending waves propagating in isotropic heterogeneous thin plates. This is achieved through homogenization of a multilayered concentric coating filled with piecewise constant isotropic elastic material. Significantly, our cloak displays no phase shift for both backward and forward scattering. To foster experimental efforts, we provide a simplified design of the cloak which is shown to work in a more than two-octave frequency range (30 Hz to 150 Hz) when it consists of 10 layers using only 6 different materials overall. This metamaterial should be easy to manufacture, with potential applications ranging from car industry to anti-earthquake passive systems for smart buildings, depending upon the plate dimensions and wavelengths.

We consider channel characterization for underwater wireless optical communication (UWOC) systems. We focus on the channel impulse response and, in particular, quantify the channel time dispersion for different water types, link distances, and transmitter/receiver characteristics, taking into account realistic parameters. We use the Monte Carlo approach to simulate the trajectories of emitted photons propagating in water from the transmitter towards the receiver. During their propagation, photons are absorbed or scattered as a result of their interaction with different particles present in water. To model angle scattering, we use the two-term Henyey–Greenstein model in our channel simulator. We show that this model is more accurate than the commonly used Henyey–Greenstein model, especially in pure sea waters. Through the numerical results that we present, we show that, except for highly turbid waters, the channel time dispersion can be neglected when working over moderate distances. In other words, under such conditions, we do not suffer from any inter-symbol interference in the received signal. Lastly, we study the performance of a typical UWOC system in terms of bit-error-rate using the simple on–off-keying modulation. The presented results give insight into the design of UWOC systems.

We describe a multipole method for calculating the modes of microstructured optical fibers. The method uses a multipole expansion centered on each hole to enforce boundary conditions accurately and matches expansions with different origins by use of addition theorems. We also validate the method and give representative results.

Amplification of the northern hemisphere seasonal cycle of insolation during the mid‐Holocene causes a northward shift of the main regions of monsoon precipitation over Africa and India in all 18 simulations conducted for the Paleoclimate Modeling Intercomparison Project (PMIP). Differences among simulations are related to differences in model formulation. Despite qualitative agreement with paleoecological estimates of biome shifts, the magnitude of the monsoon increases over northern Africa are underestimated by all the models.

The temperature distribution throughout arrays of illuminated metal nanoparticles is investigated numerically and experimentally. The two cases of continuous and femtosecond-pulsed illumination are addressed. In the case of continuous illumination, two distinct regimes are evidenced: a temperature confinement regime, where the temperature increase remains confined at the vicinity of each nanosource of heat, and a temperature delocalization regime, where the temperature is uniform throughout the whole nanoparticle assembly despite the heat sources' nanometric size. We show that the occurrence of one regime or another simply depends on the geometry of the nanoparticle distribution. In particular, we derived (i) simple expressions of dimensionless parameters aimed at predicting the degree of temperature confinement and (ii) analytical expressions aimed at estimating the actual temperature increase at the center of an assembly of nanoparticles under illumination, preventing heavy numerical simulations. All these theoretical results are supported by experimental measurements of the temperature distribution on regular arrays of gold nanoparticles under illumination. In the case of femtosecond-pulsed illumination, we explain the two conditions that must be fulfilled to observe a further enhanced temperature spatial confinement.

Taking a deep breath: The hydrated form of the microporous metal organic framework MIL-53(Cr) performs better than the dehydrated form for the selectivity binding of carbon dioxide over methane (see graph). The polarity of the adsorbed gas is thought to play a role in inducing framework flexibility and the breathing of the pores.

Heat is of fundamental importance in many cellular processes such as cell metabolism, cell division and gene expression. (1-3) Accurate and noninvasive monitoring of temperature changes in individual cells could thus help clarify intricate cellular processes and develop new applications in biology and medicine. Here we report the use of green fluorescent proteins (GFP) as thermal nanoprobes suited for intracellular temperature mapping. Temperature probing is achieved by monitoring the fluorescence polarization anisotropy of GFP. The method is tested on GFP-transfected HeLa and U-87 MG cancer cell lines where we monitored the heat delivery by photothermal heating of gold nanorods surrounding the cells. A spatial resolution of 300 nm and a temperature accuracy of about 0.4 °C are achieved. Benefiting from its full compatibility with widely used GFP-transfected cells, this approach provides a noninvasive tool for fundamental and applied research in areas ranging from molecular biology to therapeutic and diagnostic studies.

Critical concepts from three different fields, elasticity, plasmonics and metamaterials, are brought together to design a metasurface at the geophysical scale, the resonant metawedge, to control seismic Rayleigh waves. Made of spatially graded vertical subwavelength resonators on an elastic substrate, the metawedge can either mode convert incident surface Rayleigh waves into bulk elastic shear waves or reflect the Rayleigh waves creating a "seismic rainbow" effect analogous to the optical rainbow for electromagnetic metasurfaces. Time-domain spectral element simulations demonstrate the broadband efficacy of the metawedge in mode conversion while an analytical model is developed to accurately describe and predict the seismic rainbow effect; allowing the metawedge to be designed without the need for extensive parametric studies and simulations. The efficiency of the resonant metawedge shows that large-scale mechanical metamaterials are feasible, will have application, and that the time is ripe for considering many optical devices in the seismic and geophysical context.

Abstract This review is intended to provide a critical and up-to-date survey of the analytical approximate methods that are encountered in scattering from random rough surfaces. The underlying principles of the different methods are evidenced and the functional form of the corresponding scattering amplitude or cross-section is given. The reader is referred to the original papers in order to obtain the explicit expressions of the coefficients and kernels. We have tried to identify the main strengths and weaknesses of the various theories. We provide synthetic tables of their respective performances, according to a dozen important requirements a valuable method should meet. Both scalar acoustic and vector electromagnetic theories are equally addressed.

We explore the thesis that resonances in trees result in forests acting as locally resonant metamaterials for Rayleigh surface waves in the geophysics context. A geophysical experiment demonstrates that a Rayleigh wave, propagating in soft sedimentary soil at frequencies lower than 150 Hz, experiences strong attenuation, when interacting with a forest, over two separate large frequency bands. This experiment is interpreted using finite element simulations that demonstrate the observed attenuation is due to bandgaps when the trees are arranged at the sub-wavelength scale with respect to the incident Rayleigh wave. The repetitive bandgaps are generated by the coupling of the successive longitudinal resonances of trees with the vertical component of the Rayleigh wave. For wavelengths down to 5 meters, the resulting bandgaps are remarkably large and strongly attenuating when the acoustic impedance of the trees matches the impedance of the soil. Since longitudinal resonances of a vertical resonator are inversely proportional to its length, a man-made engineered array of resonators that attenuates Rayleigh waves at frequency ≤10 Hz could be designed starting from vertical pillars coupled to the ground with longitudinal resonance ≤10 Hz.

We describe the first practical realization of a cylindrical cloak for linear surface liquid waves. This structured metamaterial bends surface waves radiated by a closely located acoustic source over a finite interval of Hertz frequencies. We demonstrate theoretically its unique mechanism using homogenization theory: the cloak behaves as an effective anisotropic fluid characterized by a diagonal stress tensor in a cylindrical basis. A low azimuthal viscosity is achieved, where the fluid flows most rapidly. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the homogenized cloak behaves like the actual structured cloak. We experimentally analyze the decreased backscattering of a fluid with low viscosity and finite density (methoxynonafluorobutane) from a cylindrical rigid obstacle surrounded by the cloak when it is located a couple of wavelengths away from the acoustic source.

Over the past two decades, significant advances have been made towards developing chemically catalyzed asymmetric cyanohydrin syntheses. Preparations that were classically highly substrate specific, often using stoichiometric quantities of reagents, have been revolutionized by a new generation of catalysts. Methods currently available rival, and in many cases surpass, enzymatic procedures in terms of synthetic utility, generic applicability, and enantioselectivity. Such protocols are increasingly finding application in the syntheses of both biologically active natural products and therapeutically important synthetic compounds.