Nanostructured Plasmonic Medium for Terahertz Bandwidth All‐Optical Switching

Ren, Mengxin; Jia, Baohua; Ou, Jun‐Yu; Plum, Eric; Zhang, Jianfa; MacDonald, Kevin F.; Nikolaenko, A.E.; Xu, Jingyi; Gu, Miṅ; Zheludev, Nikolay I.

doi:10.1002/adma.201103162

Cited by 186 publications

(151 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…In order to successfully achieve effective optical control at the single nanoantenna level, new types of nanoscale hybrid nonlinearities have to be devised [11,[14][15][16]. One of the largest optical nonlinearities in nanoplasmonics is generated by the metal itself, through a combination of interband excitations [13,20], hot-plasma effects [16,[21][22][23] and electronic charging [24]. While these nonlinearities of the plasmonic metal can be employed for modulation devices, they are generally associated with a considerable thermal loading of the device and are accompanied by slow thermal relaxation effects.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hotspot-mediated ultrafast nonlinear control of multifrequency plasmonic nanoantennas

et al. 2014

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The small footprint and strong field confinement of plasmonic nanoantennas holds potential for achieving transistor-type nanoscale devices for optical control. We demonstrate here independent control of hotspot mediated fast Kerr nonlinearities and slow heating effects in a multifrequency plasmonic nanoantenna array. We successfully achieve resonant pumping of the nonlinear medium through an antenna mode and observe an enhanced nonlinear response of dimer nanoantennas compared to off-resonance pumping. Isolation of the ultrafast Kerr nonlinearity from slower thermal excitation is achieved by spatially and spectrally separating the excitation and readout antennas in the multifrequency array. Resonant pumping of plasmonic hotspots through one of the antenna modes results in a modulation of the resonance of the other antenna with perpendicular orientation, while the generated heat is contained in the pumped antenna. Separation of thermal effects and hotspot mediated nonlinearities provides an important next step toward ultrafast control of nanoplasmonic devices.

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confidence: 99%

Hotspot-mediated ultrafast nonlinear control of multifrequency plasmonic nanoantennas

et al. 2014

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“…Therefore, ultralow power for the all-optical tunability can be obtained relative to previously reported all-optical tunable metamaterials. 6,[18][19][20][21] This study not only provides a scheme to construct large optical nonlinear photonic materials with ultrafast response but also provides opportunities for the realization of lowpower ultrafast photonic devices for integration based on metasurfaces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An actively ultrafast tunable giant slow-light effect in ultrathin nonlinear metasurfaces

Shi

et al. 2015

Light Sci Appl

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A slow-light effect based on metamaterial-induced transparency (MIT) possesses great practical applications for integrated photonic devices. However, to date, only very weak slow-light effects have been obtained in metamaterials because of the intrinsic loss of metal. Moreover, no active control of slow-light has been achieved in metamaterials. Here, we report the realization of a giant slow-light effect on an ultrathin metasurface that consists of periodic arrays of gold nanoprism dimers with a thickness of 40 nm sandwiched between a multilayer-graphene micro-sheet/zinc oxide nanoparticle layer and a monolayer graphene/polycrystalline indium tin oxide layer. The strong field confinement of the plasmonic modes associated with the MIT ensures a tremendous reduction in the group velocity around the transparency window. A group index of more than 4 3 10 3 is achieved, which is one order of magnitude greater than that of previous reports. A large tunable wavelength range of 120 nm is achieved around the center of the transparency window when the pump light intensity is only 1.5 kW cm 22 . The response time is as fast as 42.3 ps. These results demonstrate the potential for the realization of various functional integrated photonic devices based on metasurfaces, such as all-optical buffers and all-optical switches. INTRODUCTIONThe slow-light effect plays an essential role in the field of nonlinear optics. Typical materials that have been used to achieve the slow-light effect include photonic crystals, optical fibers, and optical microcavities. [1][2][3][4][5] Recently, the slow-light effect has been realized based on metamaterial-induced transparency (MIT). 6-11 However, only a small group index of 100 was obtained in photonic metamaterials because of the relatively large intrinsic loss of metal. 6-11 Moreover, various functional integrated photonic devices, including ultrafast all-optical buffers and all-optical switches, require ultrafast control of the slow-light effect. Photonic metasurfaces offer a variety of opportunities to control light using flat and surface components and have attracted wide attention for their great practical applications in the field, such as optical computing, optical communications, and integrated photonic circuits. [12][13][14][15][16][17] To date, no ultrafast active control of the slow-light effect in metamaterials has been reported.In this letter, we report the realization of an ultrafast all-optical tunable giant slow-light effect in an ultrathin metasurface. The metasurface consists of periodic arrays of gold nanoprism dimers sandwiched between a multilayer-graphene micro-sheet/zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticle layer and a monolayer graphene/polycrystalline indium tin oxide (ITO) layer. The strong field confinement of the plasmonic modes associated with the MIT ensures a large reduction in the group velocity in the transparency window. The enhanced nonlinearity brought about by the quantum confinement (QC) effect provided by the ZnO nanoparticles and polycrystalline ITO nanograins, hot...

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“…In that work, by pattering a gold film on the nanoscale, a 100-fold enhancement of nonlinear absorption coefficient was demonstrated with femtosecond response time. 8 While this approach seems intriguing, plasmonic materials are prone to damage at higher laser intensities due to a large linear absorption coefficient of metals. 7 layers have been proposed as a means of enhancing nonlinearities by field localization in the nonlinear defect layer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large enhancement of third-order nonlinear effects with a resonant all-dielectric metasurface

et al. 2016

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A novel low-profile nonlinear metasurface, consisting of a single-layer of all-dielectric material, is proposed and numerically investigated by a nonlinear full-wave finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The proposed metasurface is transparent for low, and opaque for high values of incident light intensity. The metasurface design is broadly applicable to enhancement of intrinsic nonlinearities of any material with a sufficiently high refractive index contrast. We illustrate the ability of this design to enhance intrinsic nonlinear absorption of a transition metal oxide, vanadium pentoxide (V2O5), with resonant metasurface elements. The complex third-order nonlinear susceptibility (χ(3)) for V2O5, representing both nonlinear refraction and absorption is considered in FDTD simulations. Our design achieves high initial transparency (>90%) for low incident light intensity. An order of magnitude decrease in the required input light intensity threshold for nonlinear response of the metasurface is observed in comparison with an unpatterend film. The proposed all-dielectric metasurface in this work is ultrathin and easy to fabricate. We envision a number of applications of this design for thin film coatings that offer protection against high-power laser radiation.

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Nanostructured Plasmonic Medium for Terahertz Bandwidth All‐Optical Switching

Cited by 186 publications

References 37 publications

Hotspot-mediated ultrafast nonlinear control of multifrequency plasmonic nanoantennas

Hotspot-mediated ultrafast nonlinear control of multifrequency plasmonic nanoantennas

An actively ultrafast tunable giant slow-light effect in ultrathin nonlinear metasurfaces

Large enhancement of third-order nonlinear effects with a resonant all-dielectric metasurface

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