Versatile on-chip plasmonic lattices enabled by Kekulé metasurfaces
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) lattices created by artificial plasmonic metasurfaces, can carry tremendous optical information and have implications for resilient and secure optical communication. However, tailoring the intensity, spectral, and spatial distributions of these SPP lattices intentionally remain challenging. Here, we develop, theoretically and experimentally, a variety of optical SPP lattices in a category of metasurface named as Kekulé metasurface. This plasmonic nanostructure localizes surface plasmonic polaritons into assorted optical lattices at the two-dimensional limit, visualized by noninvasive leakage radiation microscopy. The spatial distribution and relative intensity of the SPP lattice sites are evolved and tailored by superposing an extra wing-shaped nanoslit set. A configurable on-chip light-emitter array and high-security imaging encryption/decryption using such optical lattices are further demonstrated. This work reports a versatile Kekulé metasurface platform and well-defined SPP lattices with multiple degrees of freedoms, featuring rich physic phenomena and potential photonic elements for applications into existing technologies.
Authors
- ChaoLing Du (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7665-1991)
- Yanpeng Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5265-2735)
- Airong Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8770-1157)
- Caixia Kan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3722-422X)
- Jinguo Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6790-6582)
- Pin Lyu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1881-3766)
- Mingming Jiang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1784-582X)
- Xiaofan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8933-8344)
- Ying Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3397-3207)
- Shuiyan Cao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3731-9456)
- Yanru Luo (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3666-2092)
- Wenhui Sun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6028-1364)
Institutions
- Liaocheng University (CN)
- Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (CN)
- Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-11-26
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-65656-5
- Primary Topic
- Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation
- Government of Jiangsu Province
- Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
- Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province
- Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province
- Nanjing University
- State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures
- Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions
- National Key Research and Development Program of China
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities