Metamaterial electro-optic switch of nanoscale thickness

We demonstrate an innovative concept for nanoscale electro-optic switching. It exploits the frequency shift of a narrow-band Fano resonance mode in a plasmonic planar metamaterial induced by a change in the dielectric properties of an adjacent chalcogenide glass layer. An electrically stimulated transition between amorphous and crystalline forms of the glass brings about a 150 nm shift in the near-infrared resonance providing transmission modulation with a contrast ratio of 4:1 in a device of subwavelength thickness

Algebraic models of Poincare embeddings

Let f: P-->W be an embedding of a compact polyhedron in a closed oriented manifold W, let T be a regular neighborhood of P in W and let C:=closure(W-T) be its complement. Then W is the homotopy push-out of a diagram CP. This homotopy push-out square is an example of what is called a Poincare embedding. We study how to construct algebraic models, in particular in the sense of Sullivan, of that homotopy push-out from a model of the map f. When the codimension is high enough this allows us to completely determine the rational homotopy type of the complement C = W-f(P). Moreover we construct examples to show that our restriction on the codimension is sharp. Without restriction on the codimension we also give differentiable modules models of Poincare embeddings and we deduce a refinement of the classical Lefschetz duality theorem, giving information on the algebra structure of the cohomology of the complement.Comment: Published by Algebraic and Geometric Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/agt/AGTVol5/agt-5-9.abs.htm