Tuning of Near- and Far-Field Properties of All-dielectric Dimer Nanoantennas via Ultrafast Electron-Hole Plasma Photoexcitation

TL;DR

This paper introduces a silicon dimer nanoantenna capable of ultrafast optical signal modulation and beam steering through electron-hole plasma photoexcitation, enabling high-speed, low-loss light routing in integrated optical devices.

Contribution

It presents a novel, tunable silicon nanoantenna design that achieves ultrafast beam steering and LDOS modification via electron-hole plasma photoexcitation, with an analytical model of its transient dynamics.

Findings

Beam steering up to 20 degrees demonstrated.

LDOS can be altered by up to 50% on average.

Projected LDOS changes can reach nearly 500%.

Abstract

Achievement of all-optical ultrafast signal modulation and routing by a low-loss nanodevice is a crucial step towards an ultracompact optical chip with high performance. Here, we propose a specifically designed silicon dimer nanoantenna, which is tunable via photoexcitation of dense electron-hole plasma with ultrafast relaxation rate. Basing on this concept, we demonstrate the effect of beam steering up to 20 degrees via simple variation of incident intensity, being suitable for ultrafast light routing in an optical chip. The effect is demonstrated both in the visible and near-IR spectral regions for silicon and germanium based nanoantennas. We also reveal the effect of electron-hole plasma photoexcitation on local density of states (LDOS) in the dimer gap and find that the orientation averaged LDOS can be altered by 50\%, whereas modification of the projected LDOS can be even more dramatic: almost 500\% for transverse dipole orientation. Moreover, our analytical model sheds light on transient dynamics of the studied nonlinear nanoantennas, yielding all temporal characteristics of the proposed ultrafast nanodevice. The proposed concept paves the ways to creation of low-loss, ultrafast, and compact devices for optical signal modulation and routing.