TY - GEN
T1 - PT-symmetric epsilon-near-zero plasmonic waveguides
AU - Li, Ying
AU - Argyropoulos, Christos
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IEEE.
PY - 2017/10/18
Y1 - 2017/10/18
N2 - Plasmonic waveguides exhibit an effective epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) response at their cut-off frequency. In this work, we demonstrate a nanoscale parity-time (PT) symmetric nanophotonic device based on gain medium embedded inside the nanochannel of a plasmonic waveguide. The effect of introducing gain is more than loss compensation and can cause a plethora of new interesting phenomena. In particular, the interplay between loss and gain will lead to super scattering at the exceptional point obtained close to the ENZ resonance frequency. This interesting effect is made possible by introducing an active material with small gain coefficient inside the plasmonic waveguide. When the proposed active waveguide is illuminated by two counter-propagating plane waves, the output ENZ power becomes unidirectional. In addition, the ENZ response can be dynamically modulated from strong scattering to perfect absorption just by changing the phase difference between the two incident waves. Strong fields are obtained in the nanochannel of the proposed PT-symmetric plasmonic waveguide, which are found to drastically boost optical nonlinearities, leading to strong optical bistability and switching at the ENZ resonance.
AB - Plasmonic waveguides exhibit an effective epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) response at their cut-off frequency. In this work, we demonstrate a nanoscale parity-time (PT) symmetric nanophotonic device based on gain medium embedded inside the nanochannel of a plasmonic waveguide. The effect of introducing gain is more than loss compensation and can cause a plethora of new interesting phenomena. In particular, the interplay between loss and gain will lead to super scattering at the exceptional point obtained close to the ENZ resonance frequency. This interesting effect is made possible by introducing an active material with small gain coefficient inside the plasmonic waveguide. When the proposed active waveguide is illuminated by two counter-propagating plane waves, the output ENZ power becomes unidirectional. In addition, the ENZ response can be dynamically modulated from strong scattering to perfect absorption just by changing the phase difference between the two incident waves. Strong fields are obtained in the nanochannel of the proposed PT-symmetric plasmonic waveguide, which are found to drastically boost optical nonlinearities, leading to strong optical bistability and switching at the ENZ resonance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042232504&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1109/APUSNCURSINRSM.2017.8072388
DO - 10.1109/APUSNCURSINRSM.2017.8072388
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85042232504
T3 - 2017 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, Proceedings
SP - 691
EP - 692
BT - 2017 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society International Symposium, Proceedings
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2017 IEEE International Symposium on Antennas and Propagation and USNC-URSI Radio Science Meeting, APSURSI 2017
Y2 - 9 July 2017 through 14 July 2017
ER -