2022-07, Sullivan, Neil, Pekola, Jukka, Leiderer, Paul

2021, Schwarz, Jürgen, Leiderer, Paul, Palberg, Thomas

We determined bulk crystal nucleation rates in aqueous suspensions of charged spheres at low metastability. Experiments were performed in dependence on electrolyte concentration and for two different particle number densities. The time-dependent nucleation rate shows a pronounced initial peak, while postsolidification crystal size distributions are skewed towards larger crystallite sizes. At each concentration, the nucleation rate density initially drops exponentially with increasing salt concentration. The full data set, however, shows an unexpected scaling of the nucleation rate densities with metastability times the number density of particles. Parameterization of our results in terms of classical nucleation theory reveals unusually low interfacial free energies of the nucleus surfaces and nucleation barriers well below the thermal energy. We tentatively attribute our observations to the presence of doublets introduced by the employed conditioning technique. We discuss the conditions under which such small seeds may induce nucleation.

2020-09-28, Feng, Yuyi, Leiderer, Paul, Zhao, Ruizhe, Xiao, Xiaofei, Giannini, Vincenzo, Maier, Stefan A., Nemitz, Clayton A., Schmidt-Mende, Lukas, Huang, Lingling, Wang, Yongtian

Plasmonic metamaterials enable extraordinary manipulation of key constitutive properties of light at a subwavelength scale and thus have attracted significant interest. Here, we report a simple and convenient nanofabrication method for a novel meta-device by glancing deposition of gold into anodic aluminum oxide templates on glass substrates. A methodology with the assistance of ellipsometric measurements to examine the anisotropy and optical activity properties is presented. A tunable polarization conversion in both transmission and reflection is demonstrated. Specifically, giant broadband circular dichroism for reflection at visible wavelengths is experimentally realized by oblique incidence, due to the extrinsic chirality resulting from the mutual orientation of the metamaterials and the incident beam. This work paves the way for practical applications for large-area, low-cost polarization modulators, polarization imaging, displays, and bio-sensing.

2019-07, Moroshkin, Petr, Leiderer, Paul, Möller, Thomas B., Kono, Kimitoshi

Electrically charged metallic microparticles and nanoparticles have been trapped under a free surface of superfluid 4He in a vertical static electric field. We report the details of the trapping technique and the observed dynamics of the trapped particles moving along the surface and driven by surface waves, by a static horizontal electric field, and by a thermal counterflow within the surface layer of liquid He.

2022, Boneberg, Johannes, Leiderer, Paul

In this review we consider the development of optical near-field imaging and nanostructuring by means of laser ablation since its early stages around the turn of the century. The interaction of short, intense laser pulses with nanoparticles on a surface leads to laterally tightly confined, strongly enhanced electromagnetic fields below and around the nano-objects, which can easily give rise to nanoablation. This effect can be exploited for structuring substrate surfaces on a length scale well below the diffraction limit, one to two orders smaller than the incident laser wavelength. We report on structure formation by the optical near field of both dielectric and metallic nano-objects, the latter allowing even stronger and more localized enhancement of the electromagnetic field due to the excitation of plasmon modes. Structuring with this method enables one to nanopattern large areas in a one-step parallel process with just one laser pulse irradiation, and in the course of time various improvements have been added to this technique, so that also more complex and even arbitrary structures can be produced by means of nanoablation. The near-field patterns generated on the surface can be read out with high resolution techniques like scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy and provide thus a valuable tool—in conjunction with numerical calculations like finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations—for a deeper understanding of the optical and plasmonic properties of nanostructures and their applications.

2021, Feng, Yuyi, Kemmer, Tobias, Graus, Philipp, Nemitz, Clayton A., Leiderer, Paul, Wang, Yongtian, Schmidt-Mende, Lukas, Boneberg, Johannes

Plasmonic metamaterials have recently received increasing attention due to their favorable optical and electrical properties. The physics of the interaction between plasmonic metamaterials and lasers are rich and open opportunities for applications, such as sensing, imaging and photovoltaics. Here, we investigate the mechanism of the interaction between Ag nanorod arrays and nanosecond (ns) pulsed laser. The experimental results show that ns laser pulses significantly improve the crystallinity of the Ag nanorod arrays. Meanwhile, the laser evaporates some of the Ag into the air. This work paves the way for future high-performance plasmonic meta-devices.

2020, Graus, Philipp, Möller, Thomas B., Leiderer, Paul, Boneberg, Johannes, Polushkin, Nikolay I.

2021-03, Möller, Th. B., Moroshkin, Petr, Kono, Kimitoshi, Scheer, Elke, Leiderer, Paul

We have studied the spatial distribution of charges trapped at the surface of superfluid helium in the inhomogeneous electric field of a metallic tip close to the liquid surface. The electrostatic pressure of the charges generates a deformation of the liquid surface, leading to a “hillock” (called “Taylor cone”) or “dimple”, depending on whether the tip is placed above or below the surface. We use finite element simulations for calculating the surface profile and the corresponding charge density in the vicinity of the tip. Typical electric fields E are in the range of a few kV/cm, the maximum equilibrium surface deformations have a height on the order of (but somewhat smaller than) the capillary length of liquid ⁴He (0.5 mm), and the maximum number density of elementary charges in a hillock or dimple, limited by an electrohydrodynamic instability, is some 10¹³ m⁻². These results can be used to determine the charge density at a liquid helium surface from the measured surface profile. They also imply that inhomogeneous electric fields at a bulk helium surface do not allow one to increase the electron density substantially beyond the limit for a homogeneous field, and are therefore not feasible for reaching a density regime where surface state electrons are expected to show deviations from the classical behavior. Some alternative solutions are discussed.

2021, Zimmermann, Urs, Löwen, Hartmut, Kreuter, Christian, Erbe, Artur, Leiderer, Paul, Smallenburg, Frank

When considering the flow of currents through obstacles, one core expectation is that the total resistance of sequential single resistors is additive. While this rule is most commonly applied to electronic circuits, it also applies to other transport phenomena such as the flow of colloids or nanoparticles through channels containing multiple obstacles, as long as these obstacles are sufficiently far apart. Here we explore the breakdown of this additivity for fluids of repulsive colloids driven over two energetic barriers in a microchannel, using real-space microscopy experiments, particle-resolved simulations, and dynamical density functional theory. If the barrier separation is comparable to the particle correlation length, the resistance is highly non-additive, such that the resistance added by the second barrier can be significantly higher or lower than that of the first. Surprisingly, in some cases the second barrier can even add a negative resistance, such that two identical barriers are easier to cross than a single one. We explain this counterintuitive observation in terms of the structuring of particles trapped between the barriers.

2019-07, Inui, Sosuke, Tsubota, Makoto, Moroshkin, Peter, Leiderer, Paul, Kono, Kimitoshi

We have conducted calculations of the coupled dynamics of quantized vortices and fine metallic particles trapped at a free surface of superfluid ⁴He. The computational result so far indicates that a particle–vortex complex may produce quasi-periodic motions along the surface and that the motions can be enhanced if the metallic particles are heated and induce local radial flows. Our results qualitatively reproduce recent experimental observations of trapped particle motion.