Slow light in dielectric composite materials of metal nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method to slow down light pulses using dielectric composites doped with metal nanoparticles, leveraging saturable absorption near plasmon resonance to achieve significant delay and potential on-chip applications.

Contribution

It presents a novel approach utilizing saturable absorption in metal nanoparticle composites for tunable slow light with high fractional delay.

Findings

Achieved fractional delay of 43 or more.

Demonstrated potential for compact, tunable on-chip slow-light devices.

Operates with THz bandwidth.

Abstract

We propose a method for slowing down light pulses by using composites doped with metal nanoparticles. The underlying mechanism is related to the saturable absorption near the plasmon resonance in a pump-probe regime, leading to strong dispersion of the probe refractive index and significantly reduced group velocities. By using the non-collinear scheme, it is possible to realize the total fractional delay of 43 or larger values. This scheme promises simple and compact slow-light on-chip devices with tunable delay and THz bandwidth.