J. Butet, O.J.F Martin

Butet et al. theoretically investigate the influence of a reflecting surface on the optical bistability of an array of nanoantennas. They show that by varying the distance between the nanoantenna array and the reflecting surface, they can control important parameters of the nonlinear response such as threshold intensity and the area of the hysteresis cycle. They predict a switching intensity threshold of 20MW/cm2 for the ideal design, which is much lower than previously reported values for isolated nanoantennas. This design is a promising approach for realizing nanoscale optical switches.