Active nanoplasmonic metamaterials support bright and dark modes that compete for gain. Using a Maxwell-Bloch approach incorporating Langevin noise we study the lasing dynamics in an active nano-fishnet structure. We report that lasing of the bright negative-index mode is possible if the higher-Q dark mode is discriminated by gain, spatially or spectrally. The nonlinear competition during the transient phase is followed by steady-state emission where bright and dark modes can coexist. We analyze the influence of pump intensity and polarization and explore methods for mode control.

Local stress fields in strained silicon structures important for CMOS technology are essentially related to size effects and properties of involved materials. In the present investigation, Raman spectroscopy was utilized to analyze the stress distribution within strained silicon (sSi) and silicon-germanium (SiGe) island structures. As a result of the structuring of initially unpatterned strained films, a size-dependent relaxation of the intrinsic film stresses was obtained in agreement with model calculations. This changed stress state in the features also results in the appearance of opposing stresses in the substrate underneath the islands. Even for strained island structures on top of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers, corresponding stresses in the silicon substrate underneath the oxide were detected. Within structures, the stress relaxation is more pronounced for islands on SOI substrates as compared to those on bulk silicon substrates

We present a corrective subcell averaging technique that improves on the accuracy of the volume-averaged finitedifference time-domain (FDTD) method in the presence of dispersive material interfaces. The method is based on an alternative effective-medium formulation that captures field discontinuities at interfaces as electric and magnetic surface currents. In calculating the spectra of strongly dispersive Mie scatterers we demonstrate that the derived FDTD algorithm is both highly efficient and able to approximately restore second order accuracy.

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