The electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) phenomenon is of great importance for plenty of applications, such as slow light, nonlinear effect, nanosensing, and metamaterials. The linewidth is a key factor to evaluate the characteristic of EIT, because the drastic change in dispersion in the narrow spectra can make good control of light. However, only a few reports are related to the ultranarrow EIT. In this paper, we propose a nanosystem based on a gold grating and a multilayer structure. An ultranarrow spectral EIT peak with a linewidth range of 0.75–1.5 nm is observed in such a nanosystem in the visible and near-infrared regions. The physical mechanism leading to the phenomenon is different from those in previous works. In the proposed nanosystem, the ultranarrow EIT peak is formed by the destructive interference of the Fabry-Perot resonance and waveguide modes. Analytic results calculated from the model equations are also found to be consistent with numerical simulations for both normal and oblique incidences. Our work provides another efficient way to realize an ultranarrow EIT.
The electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) phenomenon is of great importance for plenty of applications, such as slow light, nonlinear effect, nanosensing, and metamaterials. The linewidth is a key factor to evaluate the characteristic of EIT, because the drastic change in dispersion in the narrow spectra can make good control of light. However, only a few reports are related to the ultranarrow EIT. In this paper, we propose a nanosystem based on a gold grating and a multilayer structure. An ultranarrow spectral EIT peak with a linewidth range of 0.75–1.5 nm is observed in such a nanosystem in the visible and near-infrared regions. The physical mechanism leading to the phenomenon is different from those in previous works. In the proposed nanosystem, the ultranarrow EIT peak is formed by the destructive interference of the Fabry-Perot resonance and waveguide modes. Analytic results calculated from the model equations are also found to be consistent with numerical simulations for both normal and oblique incidences. Our work provides another efficient way to realize an ultranarrow EIT.
Electromagnetically induced transparency-like (EIT-like) effect is a promising research area for applications of slow light, sensing and metamaterials. The EIT-like effect is generally formed by the destructive interference of bright-dark mode coupling and bright-bright mode coupling. There are seldom reports about EIT-like effect realized by the coupling of two dark modes. In this paper, we numerically and theoretically demonstrated that the EIT-like effect is achieved through dark-dark mode coupling of two waveguide resonances in a compound nanosystem with metal grating and multilayer structure. If we introduce |1⟩, |2⟩ and |3⟩ to represent the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) resonance, waveguide resonance in layer 2, and waveguide resonance in layer 4, the destructive interference occurs between two pathways of |0⟩→|1⟩→|2⟩ and |0⟩→|1⟩→|2⟩→|3⟩→|2⟩, where |0⟩ is the ground state without excitation. Our work will stimulate more studies on EIT-like effect with dark-dark mode coupling in other systems.
Slow light technique has significant potential applications in many contemporary photonic device developments for integrated all-optical circuit, such as buffers, regenerators, switches and interferometers. In this paper, we present an efficient coupling mechanism of an electromagnetically induced transparency like (EIT-like) effect in an all-dielectric nano-metamaterial. This EIT-like effect is generated by destructive interference between a radiative Fabry-Perot (FP) mode and a dark waveguide (WG) mode, which is based on a combined structure of a dielectric grating and multilayer films. The dark WG mode is excited by guided mode of dielectric grating instead of radiative FP mode. In analogy to the molecular transition process, the FP mode, guided mode and WG mode are denoted by excited states of |1〉, |2〉 and |3〉. The two coupling pathways of the EIT-like effect in our metamaterial are |0〉 → |1〉 and |0〉 → |2〉 → |3〉 → |1〉, where |0〉 is the ground state. The simulated resonant wavelength of WG mode is consistent with theoretical result. We further confirm this EIT-like effect through a two-oscillator coupling analysis. We achieve a group refractive index of 913.6 by adjusting these two modes coupling of the EIT-like effect, which is useful for developing slow light device. This work provides a valuable solution to realize electromagnetically induced transparency in all-dielectric nanomaterial.
We investigate the plasmonic analog of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) using two adjacent graphene-based Fabry-Perot (F-P) resonators side coupling to a nanoribbon waveguide. By the coupling mode theory in time and F-P resonant model, the destructive interference from the coupling of the two F-P resonators results in the EIT-like optical response. The induced peak and width of the transparency window can be dynamically manipulated by varying the coupling distance of the two resonators, and the transparent window is easily shifted by tuning the resonator length or the chemical potential of the graphene nanoribbon. In order to verify the characteristics of slow light, the group index profile is analyzed at different coupling distances. The proposed graphene-based EIT-like system could open up new opportunities for potential applications in plasmonic slow light and optical information buffering devices.
In this work, using finite-difference time-domain method, we propose and numerically demonstrate a novel way to achieve electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) phenomenon in the reflection spectrum by stacking two different types of coupling effect among different elements of the designed metamaterial. Compared with the conventional EIT-like analogues coming from only one type of coupling effect between bright and dark meta-atoms on the same plane, to our knowledge the novel approach is the first to realize the optically active and precise control of the wavelength position of EIT-like phenomenon using optical metamaterials. An on-to-off dynamic control of the EIT-like phenomenon also can be achieved by changing the refractive index of the dielectric substrate via adjusting an optical pump pulse. Furthermore, in near infrared region, the metamaterial structure can be operated as an ultra-high resolution refractive index sensor with an ultra-high figure of merit (FOM) reaching 3200, which remarkably improve the FOM value of plasmonic refractive index sensors. The novel approach realizing EIT-like spectral shape with easy adjustment to the working wavelengths will open up new avenues for future research and practical application of active plasmonic switch, ultra-high resolution sensors and active slow-light devices.
Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)-like effects in silver, gold, and aluminum metamaterials consisting of dipole resonators and quadrupole resonators were demonstrated at visible wavelengths. Optical characteristics of the metamaterials could be controlled by the gap distance between the two resonators. EIT-like effects were observed at wavelengths between 603 and 789 nm, 654 and 834 nm, and 462 and 693 nm for the silver, gold, and aluminum EIT metamaterials, respectively. At wavelengths longer than around 650 nm, the silver metamaterials had better EIT-like features. At wavelengths shorter than around 650 nm, on the other hand, the aluminum metamaterials showed promising EIT-like results.
Abstract Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) stems from a quantum system, where an opaque atomic medium appears the narrow transparent state within a wide absorption area. This phenomenon can be achieved by quantum interference of pumping light and detecting light at different energy levels of transitions. In the generation process of EIT effect, in addition to transparent state, the atomic medium is usually accompanied with a strong dispersion effect, which will bright about a significant reduction of light velocity, thus realizing many important applications, such as slow light propagations. Although the EIT effect has many important applications, its application scenarios are greatly limited due to the fact that EIT realization usually requires specific and complicated conditions, such as refrigeration temperature, high intensity laser, etc. Recently, the analogue of EIT effect in metamaterial has attracted increasing attentions due to its advantages such as controllable room temperature and large operating bandwidth. Metamaterial analogue of EIT effect has become a new research focus. In this article, we review current research progresses on EIT metamaterials. Firstly, we describe the theoretical models for analyzing EIT metamaterials, including the mechanical oscillator model and the equivalent circuit model. Then, we describe the simulations, designs and experiments of passive EIT metamaterials with fixed structures and active EIT metamaterials with tunable elements. Furthermore, the applications of EIT metamaterials in the areas of slow lights, sensings, absorptions and other fields are also reviewed. Finally, the possible directions and key issues of future EIT metamaterial researches are prospected.