Bloch surface waves confined in one dimension with a single polymeric nanofibre.
Polymeric fibres with small radii (such as ≤125 nm) are delicate to handle and should be laid down on a solid substrate to obtain practical devices. However, placing these nanofibres on commonly used glass substrates prevents them from guiding light. In this study, we numerically and experimentally demonstrate that when the nanofibre is placed on a suitable dielectric multilayer, it supports a guided mode, a Bloch surface wave (BSW) confined in one dimension. The physical origin of this new mode is discussed in comparison with the typical two-dimensional BSW mode. Polymeric nanofibres are easily fabricated to contain fluorophores, which make the dielectric nanofibre and multilayer configuration suitable for developing a large range of new nanometric scale devices, such as processor-memory interconnections, devices with sensitivity to target analytes, incident polarization and multi-colour BSW modes.
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Ruxue
R
Wang
CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, iChEM, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Hongyan
H
Xia
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Douguo
D
Zhang
School of Science, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, Sichuan 621010, China.
Junxue
J
Chen
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Liangfu
L
Zhu
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Yong
Y
Wang
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Erchan
E
Yang
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Tianyang
T
Zang
Center for Micro- and Nanoscale Research and Fabrication, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Xiaolei
X
Wen
CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, iChEM, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Gang
G
Zou
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Pei
P
Wang
Department of Optics and Optical Engineering, Institute of Photonics, University of Science and Technology of China, Number 96 Jinzhai Road, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Hai
H
Ming
Center for Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, USA.
Ramachandram
R
Badugu
Center for Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201, USA.
Joseph R
JR
Lakowicz