Towards active plasmonic response devices

Given the interdisciplinary challenges in materials sciences, chemistry, physics, and biology, as well as the demands to merge electronics and photonics at the nanometer scale for miniaturized integrated circuits, plasmonics serves as a bridge by breaking the limit in the speed of nanoscale electronics and the size of terahertz dielectric photonics. Active plasmonic systems enabling active control over the plasmonic properties in real time have opened up a wealth of potential applications. This review focuses on the development of active plasmonic response devices. Significant advances have been achieved in control over the dielectric properties of the active surrounding medium, including liquid crystals, polymers, photochromic molecules and inorganic materials, which in turn allows tuning of the reversible plasmon resonance switch of neighboring metal nanostructures.