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Controlling light with light using coherent metadevices: all-optical transistor, summator and invertor

Controlling light with light using coherent metadevices: all-optical transistor, summator and invertor
Controlling light with light using coherent metadevices: all-optical transistor, summator and invertor
Although vast amounts of information are conveyed by photons in optical fibers, the majority of data processing is performed electronically, creating the infamous ‘information bottleneck’ and consuming energy at an increasingly unsustainable rate. The potential for photonic devices to directly manipulate light remains unfulfilled due largely to a lack of materials with strong, fast optical nonlinearities. In this paper, we show that small-signal amplifier, summator and invertor functions for optical signals may be realized using a four-port device that exploits the coherent interaction of beams on a planar plasmonic metamaterial, assuming no intrinsic nonlinearity. The redistribution of energy among ports can be coherently controlled at the single photon level, with THz bandwidth and without introducing signal distortion, thereby presenting powerful opportunities for novel optical data processing architectures, complexity oracles and the locally coherent networks that are becoming part of the mainstream telecommunications agenda.
Fang, Xu
96b4b212-496b-4d68-82a4-06df70f94a86
MacDonald, Kevin F.
76c84116-aad1-4973-b917-7ca63935dba5
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6
Fang, Xu
96b4b212-496b-4d68-82a4-06df70f94a86
MacDonald, Kevin F.
76c84116-aad1-4973-b917-7ca63935dba5
Zheludev, Nikolay I.
32fb6af7-97e4-4d11-bca6-805745e40cc6

Fang, Xu, MacDonald, Kevin F. and Zheludev, Nikolay I. (2015) Controlling light with light using coherent metadevices: all-optical transistor, summator and invertor. Light: Science & Applications, 4, [e292]. (doi:10.1038/lsa.2015.65).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Although vast amounts of information are conveyed by photons in optical fibers, the majority of data processing is performed electronically, creating the infamous ‘information bottleneck’ and consuming energy at an increasingly unsustainable rate. The potential for photonic devices to directly manipulate light remains unfulfilled due largely to a lack of materials with strong, fast optical nonlinearities. In this paper, we show that small-signal amplifier, summator and invertor functions for optical signals may be realized using a four-port device that exploits the coherent interaction of beams on a planar plasmonic metamaterial, assuming no intrinsic nonlinearity. The redistribution of energy among ports can be coherently controlled at the single photon level, with THz bandwidth and without introducing signal distortion, thereby presenting powerful opportunities for novel optical data processing architectures, complexity oracles and the locally coherent networks that are becoming part of the mainstream telecommunications agenda.

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Accepted/In Press date: 15 February 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 22 May 2015
Published date: 22 May 2015
Organisations: Optoelectronics Research Centre

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 376806
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/376806
PURE UUID: 1cc4336c-7457-4e53-8227-2705b9c48d71
ORCID for Xu Fang: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1735-2654
ORCID for Kevin F. MacDonald: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3877-2976
ORCID for Nikolay I. Zheludev: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1013-6636

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Date deposited: 13 May 2015 11:21
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:43

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Contributors

Author: Xu Fang ORCID iD

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