Near-field properties of a shell nanocylinder pair with gain materials

We study the near-field response of a shell nanocylinder pair, with its core filled by gain materials, using a two- dimensional finite-difference time-domain method. It is shown that the gain materials in the core of the cylinder can compensate for the intrinsic absorption of the metal shell, leading to local-field enhancement in the gap of the active pair. A linear dependence is found between the field enhancement and the gain coefficient at resonance. The detailed physics is studied by calculating the electrical-field distribution of the shell pair filled with different gain materials. The influence of the gap width and the shell thickness on the interaction of two adjacent active shell cylinders is also investigated.

Parity-time symmetric acoustic system constructed by piezoelectric composite plates with active external circuits

Researches on parity-time(PT)symmetry in acoustic field can provide an efficient platform for controlling the travelling acoustic waves with balanced loss and gain.Here,we report a feasible design of PT-symmetric system constructed by piezoelectric composite plates with two different active external circuits.By judiciously adjusting the resistances and inductances in the external circuits,we obtain the exceptional point due to the spontaneous breaking of PT symmetry at the desired frequencies and can observe the unidirectional invisibility.Moreover,the system can be at PT exact phase or broken phase at the same frequency in the same structure by merely adjusting the external circuits,which represents the active control that makes the acoustic manipulation more convenient.Our study may provide a feasible way for manipulating acoustic waves and inspire the application of piezoelectric composite materials in acoustic structures.

Enormous enhancement of electric field in active gold nanoshells

The electric field enhancement properties of an active gold nanoshell with gain material inside have been investigated by using Mie theory. As the gain coefficient of the inner core increases to a critical value, a super-resonance appears in the active gold nanoshell, and enormous enhancements of the electric fields can be found near the surface of the particle. With increasing shell thickness, the critical value of the gain coefficient for the super-resonance of the active gold nanoshell first decreases and then increases, and the corresponding surface enhanced Raman scattering （SERS） enhancement factor （G factor） also first increases and then decreases. The optimized active gold nanoshell can be obtained with an extremely high SERS G factor of the order of 1019-1020. Such an optimized active gold nanoshell possesses a high-efficiency SERS effect and may be useful for single-molecule detection.