Have you ever think of how will it be when a light is controlling by another light?

A new approach to control light with light without the need for optical nonlinearity: Nanoparticle auto-oscillations in a subwavelength plasmonic V-groove waveguide induced by a control light can be used for the periodic modulation of a transmitted plasmonic signal.

Generation of optical pulses generally relies on electronically-driven modulation of continuous light beams and laser resonators with mode-locking or Q-switching options. All-optical approaches based on interacting light beams require mediating materials to induce nonlinear interaction and pulsed control light. In an alternative approach, a Russian-British team now proposes light-light interaction without the need for optical nonlinearity. They demonstrated the use of this effect for generation of waveguided pulse trains with clock frequencies determined by the intensity of the continuous control light. The method is based on a nano-opto-mechanical system integrated in a plasmonic waveguide: A nanoparticle which is moved by a control beam scatters the waveguided signal light with a position-dependent efficiency.