Voltage-controlled extraordinary optical transmission in the visible regime

Control of components in integrated photonic circuits is crucial in achieving programmable devices. Operation bandwidth of a plasmonic device cannot be generally tuned once it is manufactured, especially in the visible regime. Here, we demonstrate the electrical control of such a device for extraordinary optical transmission (EOT) in the visible regime. (i) Operation frequency of the EOT device can be tuned via a bias voltage applied through nanowires. (ii) Or, at a given frequency, the EOT signal (normalized to the incident field) can be tuned continuously, e.g., between 10-4 and 0.4. This corresponds to a three-orders-of-magnitude modulation depth. We utilize Fano resonances induced by a quantum emitter (QE) that is embedded into the nanoholes. The external bias-voltage tunes QE's resonance. We also discuss the lifetime extensions of surface plasmon polaritons as a response to an ultrashort optical pulse. Our proposed method provides the active electronic control of EOT signal, which makes it a feasible and compact element in integrated photonic circuits, for biosensing, high-resolution imaging, and molecular spectroscopy applications.