Ultrafast Transistors and Logic Gates for Surface Plasmon Polaritons

Carsten Reinhardt Nanophotonics Group, Laser Zentrum Hannover, Hannover, Germany Tobias Birr Nanophotonics Group, Laser Zentrum Hannover, Hannover, Germany Urs Zywietz Nanophotonics Group, Laser Zentrum Hannover, Hannover, Germany Tim Fischer Nanophotonics Group, Laser Zentrum Hannover, Hannover, Germany Andrey Evlyukhin Nanophotonics Group, Laser Zentrum Hannover, Hannover, Germany Boris Chichkov Nanophotonics Group, Laser Zentrum Hannover, Hannover, Germany

Ultrafast interactions of multiple coherently excited surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) are studied and experimental results are presented, allowing the realization of optical plasmonic equivalents of switches, transistors, and logic gates. SPPs on thin metallic films are excited by local scattering of laser light on polymeric or metallic surface nanostructures and in dielectrically-loaded SPP waveguides. SPP interactions and scattering effects are investigated by novel temporally resolved leakage radiation microscopy. The interference of SPPs inside dielectric SPP waveguides as well as the interference of SPPs with additional light fields is demonstrated for tracking the propagation of ultrashort SPP pulses excited by 60 fs laser pulses at a central wavelength of 800 nm. We present results on SPP autocorrelation, allowing the SPP dispersion and pulse durations to be measured. Furthermore, we demonstrate ultrafast scattering of propagating SPPs on regions of metal films pumped by additional laser pulses. In a time-delay pump-probe experiment it is shown that this SPP scattering occurs on the time scale of the pulse duration. Furthermore, the interactions of coherently excited SPPs in complex dielectric waveguides and with laser printed isolated spherical metallic or silicon nanoparticles [1,2] are demonstrated for the construction of ultrafast low-power SPP switches, transistors, and all-optical gate structures. Possibilities of cascading of these plasmonic elements are discussed.

References:

[1] Zywietz, A. B. Evlyukhin, C. Reinhardt, B. N. Chichkov. Laser printing of silicon nanoparticles with resonant optical electric and magnetic responses, Nature Comm. 5, p. 4402 (2014)

[2] Zywietz, C. Reinhardt, A. B. Evlyukhin, T. Birr, B. N. Chichkov, Generation and patterning of Si nanoparticles by femtosecond laser pulses, Appl. Phys. A 114, pp. 45–50 (2014)

c.reinhardt@lzh.de