Metal Nanostructures for Photonics

Luciana Reyes Pires Kassab, Cid Bartolomeu De Araujo, Luciana Reyes Pires Kassab, Cid Bartolomeu De Araujo

• Publisher: Elsevier
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780081023792
• Topic: Naturwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Nanowissenschaft

Metal Nanostructures for Photonics presents updates on the development of materials with enhanced optical properties and the demand for novel metal-dielectric nanocomposites and nanostructured materials. The book covers various aspects of metal-dielectric nanocomposites and metallic-nanostructures and illustrates techniques used to prepare and characterize materials and their physical properties. It focuses on three main sections, nanocomposites with enhanced luminescence properties due to contributions of metal nanoparticles hosted in photonic glasses, near and far-field optical phenomena, and the optical response of single nanoparticles that reveal quantum phenomena in the nanoscale, amongst other topics.

This book will serve as an important research reference for materials scientists who want to learn more on how a range of metallic nanostructured materials are used in photonics.

• Sets out the properties of a range of metal-dielectric nanostructures and nanocomposites, along with the use cases for each in photonics
• Discusses the pros and cons of using different metallic nanostructures for different photonic applications
• Includes case studies that illustrate how metallic nanostructures have successfully been applied in photonics

Section II

Near and Far-Field Optical Phenomena Associated and/or Influenced by Metallic Nanoparticles

3

Nonlinear Optics With Metal-Dielectric Nanocomposites

Raúl Rangel-Rojo^⁎; Héctor Sánchez-Esquivel^⁎; Bonifacio Can-Uc^⁎; A. Crespo-Sosa^†; A. Oliver^{† ⁎} Department of Optics, CICESE, Ensenada, Mexico
^† Institute of Physics, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico

Abstract

In this work, we will present a study of the nonlinear optical properties of nanocomposites containing metal nanoparticles synthesized ex profeso and the influence of their structure and composition in their resulting nonlinear optical properties. The systems studied consist of composites containing elongated silver nanoparticles aligned in a preferential direction in a silica matrix and spherical platinum nanoparticles embedded in sapphire. We present the study of the refractive and absorptive nonlinear optical properties of these composites employing the z-scan technique with picosecond and femtosecond pulses. In the case of the elongated silver nanoparticles, the electronic and thermal contributions to the nonlinear response were resolved through a modification of the z-scan technique. Finally, we present the fabrication and characterization of channel waveguides produced with these materials.

Keywords

Metallic nanoparticles; Nonlinear optical properties; Localized surface plasmon resonance; Optical waveguides

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank CONACYT México for partial support of this work through grants 222485 and UNAM for grant DGAPA IN108217. ESE also wants to thank CONACyT México for scholarship 221750.

3.1 Introduction

Nanostructured materials, consisting of inclusions of one material into another, in which at least one of the dimensions of the inclusions is in the order of 1–100 nm, have been the subject of intensive research in the past, mainly because of the capability of tailoring their physical properties in general, by manipulation of their structure and composition [1,2]. The improvement of characteristics such as mechanical strength [1] and electric [2] and optical properties [3] has all been investigated toward the development of possible real-life applications [4].

The optical properties of nanocomposites in particular have been studied because of their potential applications in fields such as novel light sources, live harvesting in solar cells, and in telecommunications, to name a few [5–7]. Within the realm of telecommunications, the implementation of information-processing devices that exploit the nonlinear optical properties of the materials and the generation of correlated photon pairs, based also on their nonlinear response and their use in quantum information-processing systems, are two very interesting possibilities. The latter includes the possibility of implementing single-photon sources based on quantum dots for quantum information-processing systems. Both groups of applications rely on having large nonlinearities in order to observe the desired effects at the lowest possible light irradiances, so that small, compact, cost efficient devices can be fabricated.

It is important to point out that although the development of materials with well-controlled dimensions and structure is relatively recent, due in good part to new nanofabrication technologies, there are a few examples of very old materials with interesting optical properties that incorporate, albeit circumstantially, nanoparticles. One example is the cup of Lycurgus, a roman artifact from the 4th century AD, which consists of a glass containing gold nanoparticles that shows a strong absorption in green due to the surface plasmon resonance of gold. This strong absorption band results in a very marked dichroism, that is, a striking difference in color when viewed with transmitted or reflected light. Another example is medieval stained glass: in the middle ages, glass makers learned how to produce gold colloids to fabricate red glass, which was used extensively in churches all around Europe for hundreds of years.

Metallic nanoparticles embedded in dielectric matrices such as silica are particularly interesting because of the surface p...