All-in-one, all-optical logic gates using liquid metal plasmon nonlinearity.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 38409174.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-024-46014-3 and PMC identifier 10897469.
- 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
Electronic processors are reaching the physical speed ceiling that heralds the era of optical processors. Multifunctional all-optical logic gates (AOLGs) of massively parallel processing are of great importance for large-scale integrated optical processors with speed far in excess of electronics, while are rather challenging due to limited operation bandwidth and multifunctional integration complexity. Here we for the first time experimentally demonstrate a reconfigurable all-in-one broadband AOLG that achieves nine fundamental Boolean logics in a single configuration, enabled by ultrabroadband (400-4000 nm) plasmon-enhanced thermo-optical nonlinearity (TONL) of liquid-metal Galinstan nanodroplet assemblies (GNAs). Due to the unique heterogeneity (broad-range geometry sizes, morphology, assembly profiles), the prepared GNAs exhibit broadband plasmonic opto-thermal effects (hybridization, local heating, energy transfer, etc.), resulting in a huge nonlinear refractive index under the order of 10<sup>-4</sup>-10<sup>-5</sup> within visual-infrared range. Furthermore, a generalized control-signal light route is proposed for the dynamic TONL modulation of reversible spatial-phase shift, based on which nine logic functions are reconfigurable in one single AOLG configuration. Our work will provide a powerful strategy on large-bandwidth all-optical circuits for high-density data processing in the future.