Unusual performances of metamaterials such as negative index of refraction, memory effect, and cloaking originate from the resonance features of the metallic composite atom [1][2][3][4][5][6] . Indeed, control of metamaterial properties by changing dielectric environments of thin films below the metallic resonators has been demonstrated [7][8][9][10][11] . However, the dynamic control ranges are still limited to less than a factor of 10, 7-11 with the applicable bandwidth defined by the sharp resonance features. Here, we present ultra-broad-band metamaterial thin film with colossal dynamic control range, fulfilling present day research demands. Hybridized with thin VO 2 (vanadium dioxide) 12-18 films, nanoresonator supercell arrays designed for one decade of spectral width in terahertz frequency region show an unprecedented extinction ratio of over 10000 when the underlying thin film experiences a phase transition. Our nanoresonator approach realizes the full potential of the thin film technology for long wavelength applications.

We demonstrate ultrafast all-optical control of terahertz (THz) radiation through nanoresonators, slot antennas with a hundred micron length but submicron width in thin gold layers, fabricated on vanadium dioxide (VO2) thin films. Our THz nanoresonators show almost perfect transmission at resonance. By virtue of phase transition of VO2 from insulating to metallic state, induced in subpicosecond time scale by moderate optical pump, ultrafast control of THz transmission is enabled. This is compared to bare VO2 films where no switching dynamics are observed under similar conditions.

The terahertz (THz) spectrum is the focus of basic research in solid‐state physics, chemistry, and materials science as well as applications in next‐generation communications, far‐infrared bolometer, bio/chemical‐sensing, and medical imaging. This wavelength range is at the intersection between photonics and electronics, presenting tremendous opportunities to boost fundamental light–matter interactions enabled by plasmonic nanostructures, metamaterials, and inherent molecular vibrational modes, which occur on time scales of tens of femtoseconds to picoseconds. Recently, engineered metamaterials have presented unique platforms for sensing applications due to their ability to boost such light–matter interactions on the nanoscale and to their spectral selectivity in a wide range from the mid‐infrared to the THz region. Their resonant response can be tuned to that of the intra‐ and intermolecular vibrational modes of target bio/chemical molecules. The emerging fields of highly sensitive and selective mid‐infrared and THz spectroscopies based on metamaterials and plasmonic nanostructures are reviewed. Furthermore, practical applications of these next generation spectroscopic sensors are also discussed, where the sensor platforms will lead to a great impact in the advancement of ultrasmall‐quantity detection of explosives, nondestructive inspection of hazardous materials, food safety, and conformational dynamics of biomolecules in their aqueous environment.

We report on an order of magnitude enhanced nonlinear response of vanadium dioxide thin film patterned with nanoresonators--nano slot antennas fabricated on the gold film. Transmission of terahertz radiation, little affected by an optical pumping for the case of bulk thin film, can now be completely switched-off: DeltaT/T approximately -0.9999 by the same optical pumping power. This unprecedentedly large optical pump-terahertz probe nonlinearity originates from the insulator-to-metal phase transition drastically reducing the antenna cross sections of the nanoresonators. Our scheme enables nanoscale-thin film technology to be used for all-optical switching of long wavelength light.

Nanoscale metallic barriers embedded in terahertz (THz) slot antennas are shown to provide unprecedented control of the transition state arising at the crossover between the full-and half-wavelength resonant modes of such antennas. We demonstrate strong near-field coupling between two paired THz slot antennas separated by a 5 nm wide nanobarrier, almost fully inducing the shift to the resonance of the double-length slot antenna. This increases by a factor of 50 the length-scale needed to observe similar coupling strengths in conventional air-gap antennas (around 0.1 nm), making the transition state readily accessible to experiment. Our measurements are in good agreement with a quantitative theoretical modeling, which also provides a simple physical picture of our observations.

Recent technological advances in fabrication methods have allowed researchers to manipulate light–matter interactions in the subwavelength region and develop a wide variety of innovative optical applications from the visible to the microwave region. Metal patterning at a subwavelength scale plays a crucial role in realizing these optical applications. Various standard lithography techniques including laser beam machining, focused ion beam, photolithography, and electron‐beam lithography are used for the subwavelength feature size of the metal patterns. Many recent studies have demonstrated that funneling light into nanometer‐wide gaps in metals gives rise to strong field enhancements and nonlocal electromagnetic effects. However, these standard methods encounter difficulties when one tries to fabricate nanometer feature sizes with macroscopic circumferences, crucial for long‐wavelength applications, over a large area. Here, new lithography techniques that fabricate an array of metal gaps of nanometer‐to‐Ångstrom scale are covered. The corresponding photonic applications in the terahertz and microwave regions are also introduced. These next‐generation metal gaps will have a great impact on the advancement of field enhancement and confinement toward the next level of applications such as metamaterials, quantum tunneling, active switching devices, and ultrasensitive chemical/biological sensors.

We investigate resonance behaviors of optically thin metallic slot antennas on finite substrates in terahertz frequency regime. By carefully analyzing theoretical and experimental results, we observe that slot antennas fabricated in a gold film with a thickness below the skin depth of gold show blueshifted resonance frequencies for the increasing slot width, while the opposite resonance behaviors appear when the slot antennas are perforated in perfectly electric conductor. In addition, we find that for slot antenna sustained by a finite substrate its thickness and the slot width are additional crucial factors determining the resonance frequency of slot antennas.

Understanding and controlling the nanoscale transport of excitonic quasiparticles in atomically thin two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors are crucial to produce highly efficient nano-excitonic devices. Here, we present a nanogap device to selectively confine excitons or trions of 2D transition metal dichalcogenides at the nanoscale, facilitated by the drift-dominant exciton funneling into the strain-induced local spot. We investigate the spatiospectral characteristics of the funneled excitons in a WSe 2 monolayer (ML) and converted trions in a MoS 2 ML using hyperspectral tip-enhanced photoluminescence imaging with <15-nm spatial resolution. In addition, we dynamically control the exciton funneling and trion conversion rate by the gigapascal-scale tip pressure engineering. Through a drift-diffusion model, we confirm an exciton funneling efficiency of ∼25% with a significantly low strain threshold (∼0.1%), which sufficiently exceeds the efficiency of ∼3% in previous studies. This work provides a previously unexplored strategy to facilitate efficient exciton transport and trion conversion of 2D semiconductor devices.