Coherent control of metallic nanoparticles near fields: Nanopulse controllers and functional nanoamplifiers

When a hybrid system consisting of a metallic nanoparticle and a semiconductor quantum dot interacts with a coherent light source (laser beam) the coherence generated in the quantum dot can significantly renormalize the plasmonic field. In this paper we study the impacts of such coherent-plasmonic processes when such a hybrid system interacts with amplitude-modulated laser fields. We demonstrate how such these processes allow the metallic nanoparticle to act as a nanoamplifier and a pulse controller for the quantum dot. We show that as a nanopulse controller the metallic nanoparticle can control the shapes of optical pulses experienced by the quantum dot, including dramatic modification of their widths. As a functional nanoamplifier the metallic nanoparticle can enhance high intensity parts of a pulse train while suppressing the parts that their intensities are less than a given value. Therefore, it not only can enhance the amplitudes of the optical pulses but also can make them return-to-zero pulses.