Ultrafast Plasmonic Optical Switching Structures and Devices

Abstract

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 approaches for further development and new applications of ultrafast optical switching devices.

Plasmonic switch based on asymmetric cavities with embedding square of gold inside the cavities

“…1 The proposed structures for implementing optical switches operate based on different principles with different characteristics and applications, among which, optical switches based on the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) have attracted attention due to their fast response time, low power consumption, and nanometer-scale. [2][3][4][5][6][7] SPPs are electromagnetic waves propagating at the interface between a metal and a dielectric. In metal structures, only transverse magnetic (TM) polarization excites the SPPs.…”

Multifunctional logic gates based on resonant transmission at atomic-plasmonic structure

“…Furthermore, in our atomic plasmonic systems, narrow optical atomic bandpass filters work based on induced transmission in atomic transition lines 17 . These narrow line filters are required in atmospheric LIDAR 18 , laser communication 19 , quantum optics 20 or logic processing which is not possible without dynamic switching 21 . This means that having a filter with continuous and fast tunability with the possibility for integration on miniaturized solid-state devices will be especially important in the above-mentioned applications.…”

A femtosecond optical switch using molecular two-photon absorption with multi-step charge dissociation

“…All-optical switching is the essential component of optical logic circuits, optical computation, and optical communication. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Organic molecules can have large third-order optical nonlinearities, owing to the large p-electron delocalization, and are widely applied in all-optical switching and modulation devices utilizing the optical Kerr effect. 8,9 This kind of is optical nonlinearity is usually a nonresonant process with a response time from 10 À12 s to 10 À11 s, which limits the speed of optical switching and modulation devices.…”