"Rainbow" trapping and releasing at telecommunication wavelengths.

The reported "trapped rainbow" storage of THz light in metamaterials and plasmonic graded structures has opened an attractive new method to control electromagnetic radiation. Here, we show how, by incorporating the frequency-dependent dielectric properties of the metal, the graded grating structures developed for "trapped rainbow" storage of THz light in mum level can be scaled to nm level for telecommunication waves for applications in optical communication and various nanophotonic circuits.