Ultrafast all-optical switching via coherent modulation of metamaterial absorption

• Main Authors: Fang, Xu, Tseng, Ming Lun, Ou, Jun-Yu, MacDonald, Kevin F., Tsai, Din Ping, Zheludev, Nikolay I.
• Other Authors: School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: DRNTU::Science::Physics::Optics and light
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/104103; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/19551
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

We report on the demonstration of a femtosecond all-optical modulator providing, without nonlinearity and therefore at arbitrarily low intensity, ultrafast light-by-light control. The device engages the coherent interaction of optical waves on a metamaterial nanostructure only 30 nm thick to efficiently control absorption of near-infrared (750–1040 nm) femtosecond pulses, providing switching contrast ratios approaching 3:1 with a modulation bandwidth in excess of 2 THz. The functional paradigm illustrated here opens the path to a broad family of meta-devices for ultrafast optical data processing in coherent networks.