Nanophotonics key to high-speed information transfer

Reporting in Optica, optical and material scientists at the University of Rochester and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich describe a basic model circuit consisting of a silver nanowire and a single-layer flake of molybendum disulphide (MoS2).

Using a laser to excite electromagnetic waves (plasmons) at the surface of the wire, the researchers found that the MoS2 flake at the far end of the wire generated strong light emission. Going in the other direction, as the excited electrons relaxed, they were collected by the wire and converted back into plasmons, which emitted light of the same wavelength.

‘We have found that there is pronounced nanoscale light-matter interaction between plasmons and atomically thin material that can be exploited for nanophotonic integrated circuits,’ said Nick Vamivakas, assistant professor of quantum optics and quantum physics at the University of Rochester and senior author of the paper.

Typically about a third of the remaining energy would be lost for every few microns the plasmons travelled along the wire, said Kenneth Goodfellow, a graduate student at Rochester’s Institute of Optics and lead author of the Optica paper.