Metamaterial all-optical switching based on resonance mode coupling in dielectric meta-atoms

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel all-optical switching mechanism using resonance mode coupling in dielectric meta-atoms, avoiding nonlinear effects and enabling low-power, high-speed optical switches in the microwave range.

Contribution

It proposes a new resonance mode coupling approach for all-optical switching that does not rely on optical nonlinearity, demonstrating practical microwave applications.

Findings

Successful experimental demonstration of switching in microwave range

Achieved low threshold power for switching

High switching speed demonstrated

Abstract

All-optical switching based on optical nonlinearity must undergo complex processes of light-mater interaction in atom and electron scale, so a relative high power and long response time is required, that construct main bottlenecks in all-optical technology. In this paper, we propose a new mechanism for building all-optical switching based on a change resonance modes of meta-atoms in metamaterials, not involved optical nonlinearity of materials. A metamaterial composed of cubic dielectric meta-atoms periodically embedded in a background matrix is designed and constructed. All-optical switch functionality by modulating the resonance modes in meta-atoms utilizing a vertical direction switch light whose power is the same value with that of the signal light is demonstrated in microwave range theoretically and experimentally. This results represent a significant step towards obtaining all-optical switching devices with extremely low threshold power and high switching speed.