Abstract
Microscopic structuring can change the effective properties of a material by several orders of magnitude. An example of this is animal bone, which has an effective elastic modulus that is more than 1,000 times larger than that of the constituent proteins. Here, we propose a broadband-enhancement principle of photonic nonlinearity that has a similar mathematical origin as the bone example. The proposed staggered array metamaterials violate the standard Miller’s rule in nonlinear optics and can enhance the third-order nonlinearity by more than a thousand to a billion times, depending on target operation frequencies. This metamaterial principle also enables manipulation of the individual components of the linear and nonlinear susceptibility tensors. Our biomimetic approach overcomes the fundamental speed-efficiency trade-off in current resonant enhancement schemes, making faster and more efficient all-optical devices possible for 1.55 μm wavelength. The principle is also applicable to ionic diffusion, heat conduction, or other transport problems.
Highlights
Microscopic structuring can change the effective properties of a material by several orders of magnitude
Numerous studies have been conducted with the aim to attain photonic nonlinearity enhancement
The proposed broadband-enhancement principle is mathematically analogous to that of naturally occurring mechanical staggered array metamaterial (SAMM), such as animal bones and bone-like materials, which have enhanced elastic modulus by more than three orders of magnitude compared to their constituent soft proteins[20,21]
Summary
Microscopic structuring can change the effective properties of a material by several orders of magnitude. The proposed staggered array metamaterials violate the standard Miller’s rule in nonlinear optics and can enhance the third-order nonlinearity by more than a thousand to a billion times, depending on target operation frequencies This metamaterial principle enables manipulation of the individual components of the linear and nonlinear susceptibility tensors. Most of these studies have focused on the introduction of tailored electromagnetic resonances near the operation wavelength to boost light–matter interactions[12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19] Both quantum-electrodynamic approaches involving the engineering of intersubband transition energy levels[12,13], and classical electrodynamic enhancement methods—mostly utilizing photonic cavities or resonant structures13–19—have been proposed. The proposed broadband-enhancement principle is mathematically analogous to that of naturally occurring mechanical SAMMs, such as animal bones and bone-like materials (e.g., nacre and sea shell), which have enhanced elastic modulus by more than three orders of magnitude compared to their constituent soft proteins[20,21]
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