Anisotropic plasmon engineering unlocks multilevel polarised upconversion

Jan 10, 2024 (Nanowerk News) National University of Singapore (NUS) researchers have introduced an upconversion plasmonphore platform to enable precise control over the polarisation of isotropic upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs). This is achieved by coupling upconversion activators with carefully designed anisotropic gap plasmon mode-supported metasurfaces. Photon-plasmon coupling in hybrid systems is...

Observing macroscopic quantum effects in the dark

Jan 10, 2024 (Nanowerk News) Be fast, avoid light, and roll through a curvy ramp: This is the recipe for a pioneering experiment proposed by theoretical physicists in a recent paper published in Physical Review Letters ("Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions via Dynamics in a Wide Double-Well Potential"). An object evolving in...

Light-powered nanocatalyst to make hydrogen using sunlight

Jan 10, 2024 (Nanowerk News) A team from the UPC and the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) have designed an efficient and stable photocatalyst capable of producing hydrogen directly using sunlight. The results are published in the journal Nature Communications("Facet-engineered TiO2 drives photocatalytic activity and stability of supported...

Groundbreaking nanofountain pen method could transform nanophotonics

Jan 10, 2024 (Nanowerk Spotlight) Controlling light at the nanoscale has long enticed researchers seeking to exploit a strange quantum mechanical phenomenon called localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). When light interacts with metallic nanoparticles (NPs) far tinier than its wavelength, several remarkable things occur. Energy gets compressed into nanometric hotspots,...