A cross-stacked plasmonic nanowire network for high-contrast femtosecond optical switching. Issue 3 (16th December 2015) - Lin, Yuanhai
Abstract : Femtosecond optical switching with more than 22% nonlinear optical modulation is achieved using a 3D network of plasmonic gold nanowires. Abstract : We report an ultrafast optical switching device constructed by stacking two layers of gold nanowires into a perpendicularly crossed network, which works at a speed faster than 280 fs with an on/off modulation depth of about 22.4%. The two stacks play different roles in enhancing consistently the optical switching performance due to their different dependence on the polarization of optical electric fields. The cross-plasmon resonance based on the interaction between the perpendicularly stacked gold nanowires and its Fano-coupling with Rayleigh anomaly is the dominant mechanism for such a high-contrast optical switching device.