Output details
13 - Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Metallurgy and Materials
University of Southampton
Giant nonlinear optical activity in a plasmonic metamaterial
Significance of output:
Combining our recent breakthroughs of (i) 300-fold nanostructuring-enhanced nonlinearity of plasmonic metal films (UK patent application 1108139.5 filed 16.5.2011) and (ii) exceptionally large linear optical activity in extrinsically chiral metamaterials, we experimentally demonstrate a photonic metamaterial exhibiting nonlinear optical activity exceeding that of natural materials by >7 orders of magnitude. This work catapults nonlinear optical activity from a curiosity of nonlinear optics to a major effect with potential applications, e.g. polarization modulation. It illustrates how nonlinear plasmonics of metamaterials offers colossal effects unfolding in nanoscale volumes, resulted in invited talks at PQE-2012 and META’12 and was highlighted by optics.org (http://optics.org/news/3/5/32).
