Voltage-controlled extraordinary optical transmission in the visible regime
Ramazan Şahin, PhD · · 1 min read · Updated
A bias voltage applied through nanowires tunes extraordinary optical transmission in the visible over three orders of magnitude.
Programmable photonic circuits need parts whose behaviour can still be adjusted after fabrication, yet the working band of a plasmonic device is usually fixed once it is made, particularly for visible light. This paper shows that extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) through a nanohole structure can be controlled electrically in the visible range.
Two modes of operation are described: a bias voltage delivered through nanowires either shifts the device's working frequency or, at a fixed frequency, varies the transmitted signal (relative to the incident field) smoothly between about 10⁻⁴ and 0.4 — a modulation depth of roughly three orders of magnitude. The control comes from Fano resonances created by a quantum emitter placed inside the nanoholes, whose resonance is moved by the applied voltage. The paper also discusses how surface plasmon polaritons live longer when the structure is driven by an ultrashort pulse, and presents the scheme as a compact building block for integrated photonics in molecular spectroscopy, biosensing and high-resolution imaging.
This summary is based on the paper's published abstract; the author list, journal and DOI are shown in the citation box.