Active tuning of ENZ resonances in a meta-antenna through phase modulation of an optical pulse
Ramazan Şahin, PhD · · 1 min read · Updated
Changing the phase of a control pulse reversibly shifts the epsilon-near-zero window of an L-shaped plasmonic nanoantenna.
Plasmonic nanoantennas squeeze light into tiny volumes and respond on very short time scales, which makes them attractive for controlling how light travels through a material. This paper looks at the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) behaviour of an L-shaped antenna in the setting of the plasmonic analogue of index enhancement, using a quantum-mechanical description of both the linear and the nonlinear case.
The central result is that the ENZ frequency can be moved actively by modulating the phase of a separate control pulse, which gives coherent, reversible control over the effective permittivity. Analytical results and three-dimensional FDTD simulations agree on sizeable spectral shifts, which stem from the coupled resonances of the L-shaped structure rather than from any intrinsic ENZ material or thick metamaterial film. The authors discuss such antennas as tunable metasurface elements for on-chip photonic circuits, field localisation, slow- and fast-light control and quantum photonics.
This summary is based on the paper's published abstract; the author list, journal and DOI are shown in the citation box.