Active plasmonic nanoantenna: an emerging toolbox from photonics to neuroscience

Abstract

Concepts adapted from radio frequency devices have brought forth subwavelength scale optical nanoantenna, enabling light localization below the diffraction limit. Beyond enhanced light–matter interactions, plasmonic nanostructures conjugated with active materials offer strong and tunable coupling between localized electric/electrochemical/mechanical phenomena and far-field radiation. During the last two decades, great strides have been made in development of active plasmonic nanoantenna (PNA) systems with unconventional and versatile optical functionalities that can be engineered with remarkable flexibility. In this review, we discuss fundamental characteristics of active PNAs and summarize recent progress in this burgeoning and challenging subfield of nano-optics. We introduce the underlying physical mechanisms underpinning dynamic reconfigurability and outline several promising approaches in realization of active PNAs with novel characteristics. We envision that this review will provide unambiguous insights and guidelines in building high-performance active PNAs for a plethora of emerging applications, including ultrabroadband sensors and detectors, dynamic switches, and large-scale electrophysiological recordings for neuroscience applications.

Plasmon–Exciton Interactions in Nanometer-Thick Gold-WSe2 Multilayer Structures: Implications for Photodetectors, Sensors, and Light-Emitting Devices

“…By increasing the thickness of the waveguide, propagating photonic modes are excited and excitons strongly interact with photonic modes for the 80 nm thickness (Figure d). In order to realize strong exciton–photon couplings, high-quality nano/microcavities, , plasmonic nanoantennas, , or plasmon–polariton nanosystems are normally introduced. A strong interaction between cavity photons and excitons leads to the creation of exciton polaritons.…”

Electromagnetic modelling of near-field plasmonic switches based on fractal nanoantennas

“…LSPR is the result of the confinement of a surface plasmon in a nanoparticle of size comparable to or smaller than the wavelength of light used to excite the plasmon [6]. One of the prominent applications of plasmonics is plasmonic nanoantennas (PNA)which can transfer the electromagnetic (EM) energy from the near-field to the far-field in its transmission mode and conversely in its reception mode [7,8]. Recently, many PNA based on fractal nanostructures such as -Sierpinski triangles [9], Sierpinski carpet [10], Cayley tree [11], Koch fractal [12], Ternary tree [13] and others [14,15] have been proposed.…”

Plasmonic high-entropy carbides

“…to generate “extraordinary” propagating waves in metamaterials and hyperbolic media 14 , 15 . Because of these capabilities, plasmonic materials 16 are growing their appeal in a wide range of applications including light harvesting 17 , biosensing 18 , neuroscience 19 , telecommunications 20 , hyperbolic metamaterials 21 , 22 , and quantum optics. Other classes of thermal devices, e.g., photothermal emitters 23 , 24 and heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) 25 , exploit the de-excitation of plasmons and the consequent localized high-temperature gradient.…”