The Role of Epsilon Near Zero and Hot Electrons in Enhanced Dynamic THz Emission from Nonlinear Metasurfaces.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35899937.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c01400 and PMC identifier 9373027.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
We study theoretically and experimentally the nonlinear THz emission from plasmonic metasurfaces and show that a thin indium-tin oxide (ITO) film significantly affects the nonlinear dynamics of the system. Specifically, the presence of the ITO film leads to 2 orders of magnitude stronger THz emission compared to a metasurface on glass. It also shows a different power law, signifying different dominant emission mechanisms. In addition, we find that the hot-electron dynamics in the system strongly modify the coupling between the plasmonic metasurface and the free electrons in the ITO at the picosecond time scale. This results in striking dynamic THz emission phenomena that were not observed to date. Specifically, we show that the generated THz pulse can be shortened in time and thus broadened in frequency with twice the bandwidth compared to previous studies and to an uncoupled system. Our findings open the door to design efficient and dynamic metasurface THz emitters.