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Plasmonic analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency at the Drude damping limit

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 758–762 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

In atomic physics, the coherent coupling of a broad and a narrow resonance leads to quantum interference and provides the general recipe for electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). A sharp resonance of nearly perfect transmission can arise within a broad absorption profile. These features show remarkable potential for slow light, novel sensors and low-loss metamaterials. In nanophotonics, plasmonic structures enable large field strengths within small mode volumes. Therefore, combining EIT with nanoplasmonics would pave the way towards ultracompact sensors with extremely high sensitivity. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a nanoplasmonic analogue of EIT using a stacked optical metamaterial. A dipole antenna with a large radiatively broadened linewidth is coupled to an underlying quadrupole antenna, of which the narrow linewidth is solely limited by the fundamental non-radiative Drude damping. In accordance with EIT theory, we achieve a very narrow transparency window with high modulation depth owing to nearly complete suppression of radiative losses.

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Figure 1: Structural geometry and field-emission electron microscopy images.
Figure 2: Experimental transmittance, reflectance and absorbance spectra in dependence on lateral displacement.
Figure 3: Prototype system for plasmonic EIT and numerical electric field distribution.
Figure 4: Extracted experimental damping and coupling parameters as a function of lateral displacement s.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank M. Dressel and C. Soennichsen for useful discussions and comments. We acknowledge S. Hein for his metamaterial visualizations. We acknowledge S. Kaiser, H. Graebeldinger and M. Ubl for technical assistance. This work was financially supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SPP1391 and FOR557), by Landesstiftung BW and by BMBF (13N9155 and 13N10146).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 4. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany

    Na Liu, Lutz Langguth, Thomas Weiss & Harald Giessen

  2. Fachbereich Physik and Research Center OPTIMAS, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Jürgen Kästel & Michael Fleischhauer

  3. 5. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany

    Tilman Pfau

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  1. Na Liu
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  2. Lutz Langguth
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  7. Harald Giessen
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All authors contributed extensively to the work presented in this paper.

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Correspondence to Harald Giessen.

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Liu, N., Langguth, L., Weiss, T. et al. Plasmonic analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency at the Drude damping limit. Nature Mater 8, 758–762 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2495

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