Light coupling is important to many optical processes because it defines how light gets into and gets out of a material system. Just like a channel between a system and the outside, light coupling is determined by the boundary properties, the optical modes inside the system, and those in the environment. Nanophotonic structures are known to be able to manipulate optical properties such as boundary reflection, dispersion of effective media, and optical cavity modes, so that they could be a promising tool to control light coupling. In this talk, manipulation of light scattering, light-thermal interconversion, and photoresponse by nanophotonic structures would be discussed. Through a simple two-step metal deposition process, the Mie resonances of low-index nanoparticles are significantly enhanced and easily visualized by scattered light. Based on the size dependence of this resonance, a size difference as small as 8 nm could be resolved by peak shift or even by color change. The metal-dielectric multilayered metamaterials with optical topological transition was proposed to work as wideband spectral-selective emitters/absorbers for efficient light-thermal interconversions. Based on our experiments, a two- to threefold enhancement of the visible/IR emission ratio during incandescent lighting is expected for this metamaterial working as a filament coating. When serving as a solar power receiver, the metamaterial could suppress the thermal radiation to 19% while still absorbing 65% of the solar power. By integrating an optical microstrip antenna with a graphene FET, a photoresponse enhancement of 18 times was achieved in the near IR regime. The enhancement was attributed to the resonant coupling of the antenna. The anisotropic shape of the antenna leads to a polarization extinction ratio as 11:1. The asymmetric distribution of the microstrips makes the graphene FET structure photoresponsive under flood illumination at a zero source-drain bias.

Jing Zhou received his Bachelor degree in optical information science and technology in 2006, and his Doctor degree in optics in 2011 both from Fudan University, China. During 2007 to 2009, he worked as exchange doctoral student at Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany. From 2011 to 2015, he worked as a postdoc at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA. He joined the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015. His research interest is mainly about nanophotonics, metamaterials, nanofabrication and interaction between light and materials in nano scale. He has published a book chapter and more than 20 peer review journal papers, including Adv. Mater. and Phys. Rev. Lett. He is currently supported by the Hundred Talent Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He also serves as reviewers of various international referred journals such as Sci. Rep. and Appl. Phys. A.