Low-power threshold gas discharge by enhanced local electric field in electromagnetically-induced-transparency like metamolecules

Abstract

To realize efficient nonlinear metamaterials, we investigate a method for enhancing the local electric field in a metamolecule composed of two radiatively coupled cut-wire resonators where resonance of the cut-wire resonators and low-group-velocity propagation of an incident electromagnetic wave simultaneously occurs. Numerical analysis shows that the local electric field in the metamolecule can be enhanced by decreasing the electrode size and the gap of the capacitor structure of the cut-wire resonators while keeping the equivalent electrical circuit parameters of the metamolecule constant. We measure and compare the threshold incident power for a gas discharge in a metamolecule fabricated in our previous study and that in a metamolecule with shrunken capacitor structures. The experiment reveals that shrinking the capacitor structure while keeping the resonance frequency of the metamolecule decreases the threshold incident power for a gas discharge and may increase the gas pressure where the threshold incident power is minimum. Further development of this work will enable us to realize efficient nonlinear metamaterials that have atmospheric-pressure gas as a nonlinear element.