The first demonstration of light driven optomechanical metamaterials exhibiting giant nonlinearity in the near infrared.

Metamaterial nanostructures actuated by light give rise to a large optical nonlinearity. Plasmonic metamolecules on a flexible support structure cut from a dielectric membrane of nanoscale thickness are rearranged by optical illumination. This changes the optical properties of the strongly coupled plasmonic structure and therefore results in modulation of light with light.

Ref:
Giant nonlinearity of an optically reconfigurable plasmonic metamaterial
J. Y. Ou, E. Plum, J. Zhang, and N. I. Zheludev
Adv. Mater. 28, 729-733 (2016) doi: 10.1002/adma.201504467