Electromagnetic field enhancement and light localization in deterministic aperiodic nanostructures

The control of light matter interaction in periodic and random media has been investigated in depth during the last few decades, yet structures with controlled degree of disorder such as Deterministic Aperiodic Nano Structures (DANS) have been relatively unexplored. DANS are characterized by non-periodic yet long-range correlated (deterministic) morphologies and can be generated by the mathematical rules of symbolic dynamics and number theory. In this thesis, I have experimentally investigated the unique light transport and localization properties in planar dielectric and metal (plasmonics) DANS. In particular, I have focused on the design, nanofabrication and optical characterization of DANS, formed by arranging metal/dielectric nanoparticles in an aperiodic lattice. This effort is directed towards development of on-chip nanophotonic applications with emphasis on label-free bio-sensing and enhanced light emission.;The DANS designed as Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) substrate is composed of multi-scale aperiodic nanoparticle arrays fabricated by e-beam lithography and are capable of reproducibly demonstrating enhancement factors as high as ∼107. Further improvement of SERS efficiency is achieved by combining DANS formed by top-down approach with bottom-up reduction of gold nanoparticles, to fabricate novel nanostructures called plasmonic "nano-galaxies" which increases the SERS enhancement factors by 2--3 orders of magnitude while preserving the reproducibility. In this thesis, along with presenting details of fabrication and SERS characterization of these "rationally designed" SERS substrates, I will also present results on using these substrates for detection of DNA nucleobases, as well as reproducible label-free detection of pathogenic bacteria with species specificity. In addition to biochemical detection, the combination of broadband light scattering behavior and the ability for the generation of reproducible high fields in DANS make these structures ideally suited for radiative engineering. In particular, I will present results on fabrication and optical characterization of aperiodic photonic and plasmonic crystals for radiative engineering in Si-compatible SiNx/Er:SiNx in the visible and NIR spectral range.;This thesis work represents the first systematic investigation of novel nanophotonic and nanoplasmonic devices based on the engineering aperiodic order for optical label-free bio-sensing and radiative engineering application.