Nonlinear Nanophotonic Circuitry: Tristable and Astable Multivibrators and Chaos Generator

Abstract

The concept of lumped optical nanoelements (or metactronics), wherein nanometer‐scale structures act as nanoinductors, nanocapacitors, and nanoresistors, has attracted a great deal of attention as a simple toolbox for engineering different nanophotonic devices in analogy with microelectronics. While recent studies of the topic have been predominantly focused on linear functionalities, nonlinear dynamics in microelectronic devices plays a crucial role and provides a majority of functions, employed in modern applications. Here, the metactronics paradigm is extended and nonlinear dynamical modalities are added to those nanophotonic devices that have never been associated with optical nanoantennas. Specifically, it is shown that nonlinear dimer nanoantennae can operate in the regimes of tristable and astable multivibrators as well as chaos generators. The physical mechanism behind these modalities relies on the Kerr‐type nonlinearity of nanoparticles in the dimer enhanced by a dipolar localized surface plasmon resonance. This allows one to provide a positive nonlinear feedback at moderate optical intensities, leading to the desired dynamical behavior via tuning the driving field parameters. The findings shed light on a novel class of nonlinear nanophotonic devices with a tunable nonlinear dynamical response.

Plasmonic Coupled Modes in a Metal–Dielectric Periodic Nanostructure

“…Periodic arrays of plasmonic nanoparticles [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] are essential structures in nanoscience and nanotechnology and, therefore, a deep understanding of their fundamental properties and applications is necessary for the development of advanced nanophotonic circuitry [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Unlike the metal–dielectric interface, which only supports well-known surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) [ 7 , 8 ] and localized surface plasmons (LSPs) [ 9 , 10 ], such arrays can couple modes between the LSP of a single constituent scatterer (typically a nanoparticle) and the diffractive modes of the lattice structure, resulting in particle–lattice field enhancements larger than those of the same number of isolated elements [ 11 , 12 , 13 ].…”

Investigating Route to Chaos in Nonlinear Plasmonic Dimer

“…For larger systems, approaches based on the dipolar approximation allow to investigate complex temporal behaviors, and a large variety of dynamics has already been evidenced, from polarization switching, [21] to oscillons or kink walls propagation, [22] and more recently support of bi-or tristability and occurrence of chaos in dimers of resonators. [23] In this latter case, an important question is the quantitative characterization of chaos, in order to consider future development of photonic-based encryption or artificial intelligence systems exploiting chaos. [24][25][26] We have recently exposed a method based on the computation of Lyapunov exponents and Kaplan-Yorke dimension for quantitatively characterize spatiotemporal chaos, [27] which is established in nonlinear systems with a large number of degrees of freedom.…”

Synthetic Plasmonic Nanocircuits and the Evolution of Their Correlated Spatial Arrangement and Resonance Spectrum

“…34,36 Most recently, Ma et al developed a nanophotonic circuitry consisting of nanodimers theoretically and discovered its dynamical behavior in the regimes of tristable and astable multivibrators as well as chaos generators. 37 Although several theoretical models have been developed for the nanoparticle-based optical circuits, their associated experimental demonstrations are rarely reported. Moreover, the metatronic model of the nanoparticle-based optical circuits is also far from mature, requiring much attention to many aspects such as the robustness and consistency for different oligomers.…”

“…On the aspect of theoretical modeling, many endeavors were paid persistently with a focus on the nanoparticle or nanoparticle-like systems. − For instance, Abasahl et al analyzed the metatronic circuits based on dolmen structures, bridging the gap between full-field electromagnetic calculations and metatronic circuits . Further, Benz and Attaran et al developed theoretical circuit models to describe the coupled plasmon resonances in nanoparticle dimers, tetramers, and pentamers in both capacitive and conductive coupling regimes. , Most recently, Ma et al developed a nanophotonic circuitry consisting of nanodimers theoretically and discovered its dynamical behavior in the regimes of tristable and astable multivibrators as well as chaos generators …”