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Ultrafast active plasmonics

Ultrafast active plasmonics
Ultrafast active plasmonics
Surface plasmon polaritons, propagating bound oscillations of electrons and light at a metal surface, have great potential as information carriers for next-generation, highly integrated nanophotonic devices [1,2]. Since the term 'active plasmonics' was coined in 2004 [3], a number of techniques for controlling the propagation of guided surface plasmon polariton signals have been demonstrated [4-7]. However, with sub-microsecond or nanosecond response times at best, these techniques are likely to be too slow for future applications in such fields as data transport and processing. Here we report that femtosecond optical frequency plasmon pulses can propagate along a metal-dielectric waveguide and that they can be modulated on the femtosecond timescale by direct ultrafast optical excitation of the metal, thereby offering unprecedented terahertz modulation bandwidth - a speed at least five orders of magnitude faster than existing technologies.
1749-4885
55-58
MacDonald, Kevin F.
76c84116-aad1-4973-b917-7ca63935dba5
Sámson, Zsolt L.
edc8b2de-2acf-405d-8ffa-ed7344d9ee7a
Stockman, Mark I.
e4231192-59e1-4272-9128-d472ecaf7cc4
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6
MacDonald, Kevin F.
76c84116-aad1-4973-b917-7ca63935dba5
Sámson, Zsolt L.
edc8b2de-2acf-405d-8ffa-ed7344d9ee7a
Stockman, Mark I.
e4231192-59e1-4272-9128-d472ecaf7cc4
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6

MacDonald, Kevin F., Sámson, Zsolt L., Stockman, Mark I. and Zheludev, Nikolay I. (2009) Ultrafast active plasmonics. Nature Photonics, 3 (1), 55-58. (doi:10.1038/nphoton.2008.249).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Surface plasmon polaritons, propagating bound oscillations of electrons and light at a metal surface, have great potential as information carriers for next-generation, highly integrated nanophotonic devices [1,2]. Since the term 'active plasmonics' was coined in 2004 [3], a number of techniques for controlling the propagation of guided surface plasmon polariton signals have been demonstrated [4-7]. However, with sub-microsecond or nanosecond response times at best, these techniques are likely to be too slow for future applications in such fields as data transport and processing. Here we report that femtosecond optical frequency plasmon pulses can propagate along a metal-dielectric waveguide and that they can be modulated on the femtosecond timescale by direct ultrafast optical excitation of the metal, thereby offering unprecedented terahertz modulation bandwidth - a speed at least five orders of magnitude faster than existing technologies.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 14 December 2008
Published date: January 2009
Organisations: Optoelectronics Research Centre

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 65840
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/65840
ISSN: 1749-4885
PURE UUID: 28122f74-468e-4ef4-ba68-293d12b4997a
ORCID for Kevin F. MacDonald: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3877-2976
ORCID for Nikolay I. Zheludev: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1013-6636

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 24 Mar 2009
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:43

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Contributors

Author: Zsolt L. Sámson
Author: Mark I. Stockman

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