Plasmonic metamaterial makes a photonic time crystal
New nanostructure could be used to make lasers that work in the terahertz frequency range The post Plasmonic metamaterial makes a photonic time crystal appeared first on Physics World .
Researchers in France and Germany have developed the first all-optical photonic time crystal, a nanostructure with potential applications in ultrafast optical computers, amplifiers, frequency converters, and new types of terahertz lasers. Photonic crystals with a periodically varying refractive index can control light propagation, similar to how semiconductor bandgaps control electron flow.
Photonic time crystals differ from this by having momenta-dependent photonic bandgaps, leading to exponentially growing light waves over time when exposed to specific momenta. Controlling these time-dependent properties at extremely short timescales has been challenging, particularly for all-optical systems. Yannis Laplace of Ecole Polytechnique in France and his team created a plasmonic metamaterial-based photonic time crystal that can be optically modulated at terahertz frequencies.
The metamaterial consists of gold nanocavities atop an insulating layer and an indium-antimony semiconductor. THz light pulses from HZDR’s ELBE accelerator were used to modulate the metamaterial's properties over picosecond timescales. The researchers discovered that the temporal modulation reduced photon dissipation by half and hopes to achieve even greater reduction.
The THz frequency range, connecting electronics and photonics, is currently less developed than both, but the new THz photonic time crystals could lead to advancements such as THz amplifiers, frequency converters, and novel terahertz lasers, bridging the "THz gap."
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