Dr. Mindaugas Juodėnas, a senior researcher in the Micro- and Nanolithography Laboratory, presented as an invited speaker at SPIE Photonics Europe 2024 in Strasbourg, France.
In his invited talk titled “Miniature Biophotonics Devices enabled by Metagrating-Integrated Lasers,” he showcased research conducted during his post-doctoral tenure at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. Dr. Juodėnas highlighted the role of flat metaoptics in advancing compact photonics solutions and presented a novel metagrating structure specifically designed for integration onto vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers. These unique metasurfaces deflected laser beams efficiently, enabling on-chip illumination for high-contrast microscopy. This and similar devices promise to impact lab-on-a-chip systems, portable microscopy, NIR-II imaging, and biosensing.
In addition to his talk, Dr. Juodėnas presented a poster titled “Nanolasing and Sensing enabled by Self-Assembled Plasmonic Metasurfaces,” showcasing achievements from the LaSensA project funded by the Research Council of Lithuania under the M-ERA.NET scheme. He described surface lattice resonances (SLR), spectrally sharp optical modes, and how leveraging colloidal single-crystal nanoparticles and capillary force-assisted assembly can enable the fabrication of large-scale metasurfaces with SLR. These optical devices are capable of ultrafast optomechanical modulation of the optical modes and enhanced Raman spectroscopy sensitivity via resonance tailoring. By interfacing with gain media, these systems enable coherent emission, highlighting the potential of self-assembly in developing cost-effective nanophotonic devices.
