In-plane coherent control of plasmon resonances for plasmonic switching and encoding

Liyong Jiang,Yuntian Chen,Joel K W Yang,Zexiang Shen,Tingting Yin,Zhaogang Dong,Weijin Chen,Alexander M Dubrovkin

doi:10.1038/s41377-019-0134-1

Abstract

AbsractConsiderable attention has been paid recently to coherent control of plasmon resonances in metadevices for potential applications in all-optical light-with-light signal modulation and image processing. Previous reports based on out-of-plane coherent control of plasmon resonances were established by modulating the position of a metadevice in standing waves. Here we show that destructive and constructive absorption can be realized in metallic nano-antennas through in-plane coherent control of plasmon resonances, which is determined by the distribution rule of electrical-field components of nano-antennas. We provide proof-of-principle demonstrations of plasmonic switching effects in a gold nanodisk monomer and dimer, and propose a plasmonic encoding strategy in a gold nanodisk chain. In-plane coherent control of plasmon resonances may open a new avenue toward promising applications in optical spectral enhancement, imaging, nanolasing, and optical communication in nanocircuits.

Highlights

Over the past few years, significant efforts have been devoted to studying the strong light–matter interactions in plasmonic systems at nanoscale[1]
We provide proof-of-principle demonstrations of plasmonic switching and encoding applications based on the mode and spatial selection of coherent absorption in single and coupled gold nanodisks
This setup is suitable for studying plasmonic nanostructures with sizes comparable to the focused spot size of the incident light beam

Summary

Introduction

Over the past few years, significant efforts have been devoted to studying the strong light–matter interactions in plasmonic systems at nanoscale[1]. Based on the control of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), many practical applications have been reported, including surface-enhanced Raman scattering[2,3], plasmon waveguides[4], molecular rulers[5], biosensing and bioimaging[6,7], surface-enhanced fluorescence[8,9], nanolasers[10,11,12], plasmonic color printers[13,14], plasmonic tunnel junctions[15], and plasmonic holography and metalens[16,17,18]. The bright and dark plasmon resonances, as well as the Fano-like[27] and electromagnetically induced transparency[28] phenomena in complex plasmonic systems, are determined by the LSPR coupling and energy transfer

Methods

Results

Conclusion