Abstract
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.
Highlights
Plasmonics is a rapidly growing field at the nexus of photonics, electronics, and nanotechnology [1]
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
We demonstrated that non-Faradaic charging of the conductive polymer can lead to strong modulations in the far-field optical response of the loaded PNAs (LD PNAs) (Figure 9A)
Summary
Plasmonics is a rapidly growing field at the nexus of photonics, electronics, and nanotechnology [1]. As evident by the rapidly increasing number of annual citations to active plasmonics–related scientific articles (Figure 1), this new research field continues to grow at an outstanding pace Progress in this field has already facilitated development of novel active plasmonic devices with unprecedented photon management capabilities, leading to new physical phenomena and a broad range of new exciting practical applications [10, 73, 74]. Beyond their passive counterparts, active PNA technologies have shown remarkable characteristics, enabling researchers to achieve new device functionalities, including ultraprecise gas sensing [73] and wireless electrophysiological recordings at the diffraction limit of light [10]. We introduce ultrasensitive electro-active PNAs for electrophysiological applications and discuss the emerging field of plasmonic neurophotonics with potential future directions
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