Nanowire-based hybrid optical fibers: A platform for nonlinear light generation and plasmonics

Summary form only given. Recent progress in planar photonics has been achieved by functionalizing integrated photonic devices with nanoscale elements being composed of sophisticated materials. One approach to transfer this concept to optical fibers is to incorporate large-aspect ratio nanowires (NWs) into fiber, which defines a subclass within the area of hybrid optical fiber (HOFs) [1] and has applications in fields such as nonlinear light generation, metamaterials, polarization control, near field optics or biosensing. It was shown that NWs inside HOFs can be created by means of using pressure-assisted melt filling [2]. In this contribution I would like to discuss two examples of NWs inside HOFs, focussing on metallic and dielectric NWs. Here we have implemented a novel type of near field probe relying on a step index fiber with a central gold NW (Fig. 1a) [6]. This excitation scheme was shown to substantially easy fabrication and will allow for future nanoscale and monolithic all-fiber near field probes.