Lumped plasmonic “diode” and lumped plasmonic “rectifier” for optical field rectification and lumped optical second harmonic generation

A circuit element that provides field rectification and second harmonic generation of an applied optical electric field at infrared and optical frequencies, comprising:

• an epsilon-negative plasmonic material;
• and
• a nonlinear optical material juxtaposed with said epsilon-negative plasmonic material, said plasmonic material and said optical material having respective geometric dimensions and relative permittivities such that a displacement current on the circuit element is nonsymmetric as said applied optical electric field varies sinusoidally with infrared or optical frequencies, whereby when the optical electric field points to one direction in a half-cycle of the optical electric field the displacement current is large relative to the displacement current that occurs in an opposite direction when the optical electric field is reversed in a next half cycle of the optical electric field.