A compound figure of merit for photonic applications of metal nanocomposites
arXiv:cond-mat/0609176 · doi:10.1063/1.2358209
Abstract
Selecting nanocomposites for photonic switching applications requires optimizing their thermal, nonlinear and two-photon absorption characteristics. We simplify this step by defining a compound figure of merit (FOM_{C}) for nanocomposites of noble metals in dielectric based on criteria that limit these structures in photonic applications, i.e. thermal heating and two-photon absorption. The device independent results predict extremely large values of FOM_{C} for a specific combination of the metal and insulator dielectric constant given by ε_{h}=\frac{ε_{1}-ε_{2}}{2}, where ε_{h} is the dielectric constant of the host and ε_{1} and ε_{2} are the real and imaginary parts for the metal.
Appearing in Appl. Phys. Lett. (2006)