Abstract
[This submission is based on the contacts with Prof. Pavesi by code JMDC(100%.2019.FPHY.832).] Plasmonic structures possess rich physics related to the sensitivity of plasmon resonance to the change in the environmental dielectric constant, the enhanced light scattering and optical extinction, and the local field enhancement enabled strong light-matter interactions, which have been applied in refractive-index sensors, optical feedback in various micro- or nano-cavity lasers, surface enhanced Raman scattering spectroscopy, and high-sensitivity molecular detection. However, ultrafast optical response is another important aspect of plasmons, which can be utilized to achieve switching of optical signals in different spectral bands. These optical switching designs are very important for applications in optical logic circuits and optical communication system. In this review, we summarize a series of reports on ultrafast plasmonic optical switches, where we focus our discussions on the structural and device designs, instead of on their physics. By categorizing the designs of optical switches into different groups by their featured performances, we intend to propose the development trend and the commonly interested mechanisms of such ultrafast optical switches. We hope this review will supply helpful concepts and technical information for further development and new applications of ultrafast optical switching devices.
Highlights
Optical switching is indispensable in integrated optical logic circuits and optical communication systems [1,2,3,4,5,6]
The p-p process is generally much slower and has smaller spectroscopic modulation depth as compared with the plasmonic electron-involved processes, which is observed as a long tail of the dynamics of optical switching signals
Two transient spectroscopic response signals were observed when the colloidal solution containing single gold nanorods was investigated by femtosecond pumpprobe detection
Summary
Ultrafast optical response is another important aspect of plasmons, which can be utilized to achieve switching of optical signals in different spectral bands. These optical switching designs are very important for applications in optical logic circuits and optical communication system. We summarize a series of reports on ultrafast plasmonic optical switches, where we focus our discussions on the structural and device designs, instead of on their physics. We hope this review will supply helpful concepts and technical approaches for further development and new applications of ultrafast optical switching devices
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