Ultrafast pulse excitation of a metallic nanosystem containing a Kerr nonlinear material

We discuss the effect of introducing a nonlinear material exhibiting a strong optical Kerr effect between two metallic nanowires. Our results are based on rigorous finite-difference time-domain calculations. We show how the near-fields that result as an intense, ultrafast pulse interacts with the system can be very different from those in the absence of the nonlinear material. In particular, for sufficiently large incident intensities, a significant reduction in the near-field intensity between the two nanowires is observed. Optical cross sections are also calculated and shown to vary with increasing intensity.