From the demonstration of saturable absorption by Vavilow and Levshin in1926, and with invention of the laser, unavailability of strongly nonlinearmaterials was a key obstacle for developing optical signal processing, inparticular in transparent telecommunication networks. Today, most advancedphotonic switching materials exploit gain dynamics and near-band and excitoniceffects in semiconductors, nonlinearities in organic media withweakly-localized electrons and nonlinearities enhanced by hybridization withmetamaterials. Here we report on a new type of artificial nonlinearity that isnano-opto-mechanical in nature. It was observed in an artificial metamaterialarray of plasmonic meta-molecules supported by a flexible nano-membrane. Herenonlinearity is underpinned by the reversible reconfiguration of its structureinduced by light. In a film of only 100 nanometres thickness we demonstratedmodulation of light with light using milliwatt power telecom diode lasers.
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