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Enhanced four-wave mixing with nonlinear plasmonic metasurfaces
Boyuan Jin1, Christos Argyropoulos1
1Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA.
Scientific Reports
|June 28, 2016
Summary
Plasmonic metasurfaces with silver nanostripes enhance nonlinear processes like four-wave mixing (FWM). This design achieves giant FWM efficiency, enabling compact optical sources and wave mixers.
Area of Science:
- Nanophotonics and Plasmonics
- Nonlinear Optics
- Metamaterials Science
Background:
- Plasmonic metasurfaces offer nanoscale enhancement for nonlinear optical processes.
- Film-coupled silver nanostripes are explored for their unique plasmonic properties.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and investigate nonlinear metasurfaces for efficient four-wave mixing (FWM).
- To achieve significant enhancement in FWM efficiency using localized plasmon resonances.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of film-coupled silver nanostripes loaded with Kerr nonlinear material.
- Analysis of localized plasmon resonances and electric field enhancement in nanogaps.
- Investigation of phase matching conditions in ultrathin metasurface areas.
Main Results:
- Achieved a nineteen-order-of-magnitude enhancement in FWM efficiency compared to a bare silver screen.
- Demonstrated highly localized electric field enhancement in subwavelength nanoregions.
- Observed directional radiation patterns for FWM generated waves, insensitive to incident angles.
Conclusions:
- Proposed nonlinear metasurfaces enable giant FWM efficiency due to enhanced local fields and relaxed phase matching.
- The dielectric nonlinear material in the nanogap is crucial for the strong FWM response.
- Envisioned applications include compact and efficient visible to low-THz optical sources and wave mixers.
