Optical nanontennas for enhancing nonlinearities, sensing, optical communications and energy harvesting

Abstract

We discuss the use of plasmonic nanoantennas to drastically enhance and tailor the linear and nonlinear response of optical materials to realize novel optical nanodevices for optical communications and computing, energy harvesting and sensing applications. By translating some of the familiar concepts of radio-frequency antennas to the visible spectrum, we propose a variety of exciting designs to tailor the nanoscale interaction of nanoparticles with light, in order to realize nanodevices with linear and nonlinear properties not available in conventional optical materials and systems. We propose individual and collections of plasmonic nanoparticles that may realize the bridge between unconventional nanoscale optical processing and far-field propagation and radiation.