Two emerging material classes, namely, two-dimensional transition-metal carbides and nitrides (MXenes) and Weyl Semimetals (WSMs) offer exciting opportunities for tailorable photonic devices. The designer-like characteristics of MXenes, achievable with the choice of composition, stoichiometry and surface termination, and tunable properties of single crystalline WSMs, realized through the manipulation of surface conditions, lead to impressive tunability of optical properties in both systems. MXenes exhibit diverse optical properties ranging from plasmonic behavior to dielectric-to-metallic transition as well as strong nonlinear response useful for ultrafast applications. In turn, WSMs such as TaAs show high photocurrent generation and strong second-harmonic generation while WTe2 holds a promise for chiral anomaly applications. The manipulation of linear and nonlinear optical response including the epsilon near zero (ENZ) behavior as well as investigation of hybrid plasmonic-MXene and plasmonic-WSM structures open a broad range of applications for these materials in emerging photonics.
Ultrafast modulation of the dielectric permittivity of materials has made great strides in the past decade, resulting in practical applications such as beam-steering, and the realization of novel physical phenomena such as time refraction. Control over the dynamics of permittivity modulation adds an additional degree of freedom in tunable optics, broadening the scope of applications. In this presentation, we report our work on controlling the dynamic optical properties of transparent conducting oxides for a wide array of nonlinear optical demonstrations. We show large changes in the epsilon-near-zero points in undoped zinc oxide, with 20ps response time, and utilize the permittivity modulation to enhance the third-harmonic generation, and develop optically controlled polarization switches. With TiN-AZO Berreman-metasurfaces, we demonstrate wide tuning of the switching times varying from picosecond to nanosecond timescales. Employing the rapid permittivity modulation in aluminum-doped zinc oxide, we demonstrate time refraction in ENZ films. Our work will develop a better understanding of nonlinear optics employing ultrafast permittivity modulation at adjustable speeds, heralding the way to further novel optical phenomena such as photonic time crystals.
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