Tunable nonlinear coherent perfect absorption with epsilon-near-zero plasmonic waveguides

We propose a scheme to realize nonlinear coherent perfect absorption (CPA) at the nanoscale using epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) plasmonic waveguides. The general conditions to achieve CPA in a linear ENZ plasmonic waveguide are analyzed and presented. The proposed ENZ waveguides support an effective ENZ response at their cutoff frequency, where the CPA effect occurs under the illumination of two counterpropagating plane waves with equal amplitudes and appropriate phase distributions. In addition, the strong and uniform field enhancement inside the nanochannels of the waveguides at the ENZ resonance can efficiently boost Kerr nonlinearities, resulting in a new all-optical switching intensity-dependent CPA phenomenon that can be tunable with ultrafast speed. The proposed free-standing ENZ structures combine third-order nonlinear functionality with standing wave CPA interference effects in a nanoscale plasmonic configuration, thus leading to a novel degree of tunable light-matter interactions achieved in subwavelength regions. Our findings provide a new platform to efficiently excite nonlinear phenomena at the nanoscale and design tunable coherent perfect absorbers. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America