Abstract
With the size of plasmonic devices entering into the nanoscale region, the impact of quantum physics needs to be considered. In the past, the quantum size effect on linear material properties has been studied extensively. However, the nonlinear aspects have not been explored much so far. On the other hand, much effort has been put into the field of integrated nonlinear optics and a medium with large nonlinearity is desirable. Here we study the optical nonlinear properties of a nanometre scale gold quantum well by using the z-scan method and nonlinear spectrum broadening technique. The quantum size effect results in a giant optical Kerr susceptibility, which is four orders of magnitude higher than the intrinsic value of bulk gold and several orders larger than traditional nonlinear media. Such high nonlinearity enables efficient nonlinear interaction within a microscopic footprint, making quantum metallic films a promising candidate for integrated nonlinear optical applications.
Highlights
With the size of plasmonic devices entering into the nanoscale region, the impact of quantum physics needs to be considered
With the development of nanofabrication techniques, the dimension of plasmonic devices has been shrunk into the nanoscale[2], where the impact of quantum physics becomes important[3,4]
The particle size was not small enough for the quantum size effect to play an important role in those systems and the significant contribution instead came from the hot electrons, which was a non-instantaneous nonlinear response
Summary
With the size of plasmonic devices entering into the nanoscale region, the impact of quantum physics needs to be considered. The quantum size effect results in a giant optical Kerr susceptibility, which is four orders of magnitude higher than the intrinsic value of bulk gold and several orders larger than traditional nonlinear media. Such high nonlinearity enables efficient nonlinear interaction within a microscopic footprint, making quantum metallic films a promising candidate for integrated nonlinear optical applications. We investigate the optical Kerr nonlinear properties of a nanometre-scale gold quantum well, and find that the quantum size effect can lead to a giant nonlinear response, which shows a several-order enhancement compared to traditional nonlinear materials, making the thin metallic quantum well promising for on-chip-integrated nonlinear applications
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