Towards femtosecond on-chip electronics based on plasmonic hot electron nano-emitters.

ABSTRACT: To combine the advantages of ultrafast femtosecond nano-optics with an on-chip communication scheme, optical signals with a frequency of several hundreds of THz need to be down-converted to coherent electronic signals propagating on-chip. So far, this has not been achieved because of the overall slow response time of nanoscale electronic circuits. Here, we demonstrate that 14?fs optical pulses in the near-infrared can drive electronic on-chip circuits with a prospective bandwidth up to 10?THz. The corresponding electronic pulses propagate in macroscopic striplines on a millimeter scale. We exploit femtosecond photoswitches based on asymmetric, nanoscale metal junctions to drive the pulses. The non-linear ultrafast response is based on a plasmonically enhanced, multiphoton absorption resulting in a field emission of ballistic hot electrons propagating across the nanoscale junctions. Our results pave the way towards femtosecond electronics integrated in wafer-scale THz circuits.

SUBMITTER: Karnetzky C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6018641 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature