Ultrafast dynamic switching of optical response based on nonlinear hyperbolic metamaterial platform

The pursuit of high-speed and on-chip optical communication systems has promoted extensive exploration of all-optical control of light-matter interactions via nonlinear optical processes. Here, we have numerically investigated the ultrafast dynamic switching of optical response using tunable hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) which consists of five pairs of alternating layers of indium tin oxide (ITO) and SiO2. The nonlinearity of the HMM is analyzed by the ultrafast dynamics of the hot electrons in the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) ITO. Our approach allows large and broad all-optical modulation of the effective permittivity and topology of the HMM on the femtosecond time-scale. Based on the proposed HMM platform, we have shown considerable tunability in the extinction ratio and Purcell enhancement under various pump fluence. In addition, we have achieved all-optical control of the coupling strength through depositing plasmonic resonators on the HMM platform. A significant tuning of the coupled resonance is observed by changing pump fluence, which leads to a switching time within 213 fs at a specific wavelength with a relative modulation depth more than 15 dB. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This study numerically investigates the ultrafast dynamic switching of optical response using a tunable hyperbolic metamaterial (HMM) on a femtosecond time-scale. The results show that the HMM platform allows large and broad all-optical modulation of the effective permittivity and topology, with considerable tunability in extinction ratio and Purcell enhancement under different pump fluence. Additionally, all-optical control of coupling strength is achieved by depositing plasmonic resonators on the HMM platform.