Accessing the optical limiting properties of metallo-dielectric photonic band gap structures

Abstract

The optical limiting properties of a one-dimensional, transparent metallodielectric photonic band\ud gap structure are studied. Due to light confinement in the structure that enhances the nonlinear\ud response of the layers, a nonlinear transmission dependence on the incident light intensity is found.\ud Experimental results are reported for a four period sample where the single period consists of ZnO\ud and Ag layers 109 and 17 nm thick, respectively. The structure was designed to exhibit a\ud transmission resonance at 532 nm. Under the action of a Q-switched frequency doubled\ud Nd:yttrium–aluminum–garnet laser, a decrease in transmission of approximately 50% is obtained\ud for a maximum incident light intensity of 2 GW/cm2. These results are explained in terms of a\ud dynamic change of the absorption coefficient due to the enhancement of the two-photon absorption\ud process. These results suggest that the structure is suitable for optical limiting applications in the\ud visible range

Electromagnetic resonances of a multilayer metal-dielectric stack

“…It has been shown previously that resonant tunneling associated with strong transmission may give strong fields inside the metal rather than the dielectric [6]. Other work has shown how this resonant tunneling may give propagating fields through the metal dielectric stack [7].…”

“…It has been demonstrated that near either band edge there is a large enhancement of the field intensity due to localization effects [5]. Near the high frequency band edge of the lowest frequency bandpass region, the electromagnetic field is predominantly confined to the dielectric in a manner similar to a Fabry-Perot cavity, while at the low frequency band edge it is suggested that the fields are more concentrated in the metal regions [6,7].…”

“…Such metal-dielectric stacks are being investigated, both experimentally and theoretically, for a wide range of potential applications including their demonstration of negative refractive index behavior [8] and the possibility of imaging techniques associated with this property [9,10], antennas embedded in windshields, electrodes on flat panel displays, electromagnetic shielding [3], and nonlinear applications [6].…”

Negative Refraction and Superresolution Using Transparent Metallo-Dielectric Stacks

“…The high index of refraction in the dielectric layer leads to smaller refraction angles inside that layer. At the same time, and more importantly, the electric and magnetic fields become localized inside the metal layers in almost equal measure compared to the dielectric layers [10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

Second-harmonic generation from metallodielectric multilayer photonic-band-gap structures

“…A resonant tunneling mechanism renders hundreds of nanometers of metal transparent, and allows both TE-and TM-polarized fields to become localized inside both the metal and dielectric layers, without the usual detriments of absorption associated with the high imaginary index component. These structures thus turn out to be an extraordinary instrument to access and enhance the nonlinear optical response of nonlinear layers [15], and in particular, the second [16] and third [17,18] order optical nonlinearities of metals. This latter feature is particularly interesting when investigating second order nonlinear effects because most metals present centrosymmetric crystal structure, so that the SH source terms arise from magnetic dipole and electric quadrupole contributions [19].…”