All-optical switching and unidirectional plasmon launching with electron-hole plasma driven silicon nanoantennas

Abstract

High-index dielectric nanoparticles have become a powerful platform for modern light science, enabling various fascinating applications, especially in nonlinear nanophotonics for which they enable special types of optical nonlinearity, such as electron-hole plasma photoexcitation, which are not inherent to plasmonic nanostructures. Here, we propose a novel geometry for highly tunable all-dielectric nanoantennas, consisting of a chain of silicon nanoparticles excited by an electric dipole source, which allows tuning their radiation properties via electron-hole plasma photoexcitation. We show that the slowly guided modes determining the Van Hove singularity of the nanoantenna are very sensitive to the nanoparticle permittivity, opening up the ability to utilize this effect for efficient all-optical modulation. We show that by pumping several boundary nanoparticles with relatively low intensities may cause dramatic variations in the nanoantenna radiation power patterns and Purcell factor. We also demonstrate that ultrafast pumping of the designed nanoantenna allows unidirectional launching of surface plasmon-polaritons, with interesting implications for modern nonlinear nanophotonics.

References in corpus (8)

• Theory of Linear Chains of Metamaterial/Plasmonic Particles as Sub-Diffraction Optical Nanotransmission Lines
• Possible surface plasmon polariton excitation under femtosecond laser irradiation of silicon
• Resonant Raman Scattering from Silicon Nanoparticles Enhanced by Magnetic Response
• Fundamental limitations in spontaneous emission rate of single-photon sources
• Enhancement and Inhibition of Spontaneous Photon Emission by Resonant Silicon Nanoantennas
• Demonstration of the enhanced Purcell factor in all-dielectric structures
• Optical Activation of Germanium Plasmonic Antennas in the Mid Infrared
• Directional Emission from Dielectric Leaky-Wave Nanoantennas

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Anapoles in Free-Standing III-V Nanodisks Enhancing Second-Harmonic Generation
• Symmetry analysis and multipole classification of eigenmodes in electromagnetic resonators for engineering their optical properties
• Hybrid Nanophotonics
• Dielectric nanoantenna as an efficient and ultracompact demultiplexer for surface waves
• Surface plasmon launching by polariton superradiance
• Switching Purcell effect with nonlinear epsilon-near-zero media
• Revealing Low-Radiative Modes of Nanoresonators with Internal Raman Scattering
• Unidirectional coupling of a quantum emitter to a subwavelength grating waveguide with engineered stationary inflection point