Coupling localized plasmonic and photonic modes tailors and boosts ultrafast light modulation by gold nanoparticles.

Plasmonic nanoparticles offer a broad range of functionalities, owing to their ability to amplify light in the near-field or convert it into heat. However, their ultrafast nonlinear optical response remains too low to envisage all-optical high-rate photonic processing applications. Here, we tackle this challenge by coupling the localized plasmon mode in gold nanoparticles with a localized photonic mode in a 1D resonant cavity.

Spectral study of the stimulated emission of Nd3+ in fluorotellurite bulk glass.

In this work we present, for the first time to our knowledge, laser emission under wavelength selective laser-pulsed pumping in Nd(3+)-doped TeO(2)-ZnO-ZnF(2) bulk glass for two different Nd(3+) concentrations. The fluorescence properties of Nd(3+) ions in this matrix which include, Judd-Ofelt calculation, stimulated emission cross-section of the laser transition and lifetimes are also presented. The site-selective emission and excitation spectra along the (4)I(9/2)→(4)F(3/2) absorption band show the inhomogeneous behaviour of the crystal field felt by Nd(3+) ions in this fluorotellurite glass which allows for spectral tuning of the laser output pulse as a function of the pumping wavelength.