Metal-dielectric photonic bandgap structures: highly nonlinear, transmissive composite optical materials

Summary form only given. We present a strategy, which uses photonic bandgap (PBG) resonances to simultaneously increase the transmission of a given thickness of metal and enhance its effective nonlinear refractive index. We demonstrate numerically that a PBG structure consisting of alternating metal and (linear) dielectric layers can impart a much larger nonlinear phase shift to a beam of light than a bulk sample containing the same thickness of metal. At the conference we will also present the most recent results of our experimental studies of the enhanced nonlinear optical properties of metal-dielectric PBG materials.