Polarization-Tunable Colorimetric Metasurfaces for All-Optical and Non-Destructive Structural Characterization of Polymeric Nanofibers

作     者：Kirya, Paula Hochberg, Justin D. Kim, Han Sol Haddadin, Zaid Bordy, Samantha Byun, Jiuk Pokorski, Jonathan K. Poulikakos, Lisa V. 

作者机构：Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering UC San Diego La Jolla CA United States Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering UC San Diego La Jolla CA United States Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering UC San Diego La Jolla CA United States Program in Materials Science and Engineering UC San Diego La Jolla CA United States 

出 版 物：《arXiv》 (arXiv)

年 卷 期：2025年

核心收录：

主　　题：Differential scanning calorimetry 

摘      要：Metasurfaces have pioneered significant improvements in sensing technology by tailoring strong optical responses to weak signals. When designed with anisotropic subwavelength geometries, metasurfaces can tune responses to varying polarization states of light. Leveraging this to quantify structural alignment in fibrous materials unveils an alternative to destructive characterization methods. This work introduces metasurface-enhanced polarized light microscopy (Meta-PoL), which employs polarization-tunable, guided-mode-resonant colorimetric metasurfaces to characterize molecular and bulk alignment of poly(Ε-caprolactone) (PCL) nanofibers in a far-field configuration. PCL nanofibers drawn at 0%, 400%, and 900% ratios were interfaced with the studied metasurfaces. Metasurface resonances coinciding with the intrinsic drawn nanofiber resonances – confirmed by Stokes Polarimetry – produced the strongest colorimetric enhancement, resultant from alignment-specific nanofiber reflectivity. The enhancement degree corresponded with molecular and bulk alignments for each draw ratio, as measured through differential scanning calorimetry and scanning electron microscopy, respectively. Thus, Meta-PoL presents an all-optical, non-destructive, and quantitative measurement of nanofiber alignment. Copyright © 2025, The Authors. All rights reserved.