Coherent far-field excitation of surface plasmons using resonantly tuned metal nanoparticle arrays

Amitabh Ghoshal; Grady Webb-Wood; Clarisse Mazuir; Pieter G. Kik

doi:10.1117/12.617686

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26 August 2005 Coherent far-field excitation of surface plasmons using resonantly tuned metal nanoparticle arrays

Amitabh Ghoshal, Grady Webb-Wood, Clarisse Mazuir, Pieter G. Kik

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Proceedings Volume 5927, Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties III; 592714 (2005) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.617686
Event: Optics and Photonics 2005, 2005, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Recent work in plasmon nanophotonics has shown the successful fabrication of surface plasmon (SP) based optical elements such as waveguides, splitters, and multimode interference devices. These elements enable the development of plasmonic integrated circuits. An important challenge lies in the coupling of conventional far-field optics to such nanoscale optical circuits. To address this coupling issue, we have designed structures that employ local resonances for far-field excitation of SPs. The proposed coupler structure consists of an array of ellipsoidal silver nanoparticles embedded in SiO₂ and placed close to a silver surface. To study the performance of the coupler we have performed simulations using the Finite Integration Technique. Our simulations show that normal incidence illumination at a free-space wavelength of 676 nm leads to the resonant excitation of SP oscillations in the Ag nanoparticles, accompanied by coherent near-field excitation of propagating SPs on the Ag film. The excitation efficiency can by maximized by tuning the aspect ratio of the nanoparticles, showing optimum coupling at an aspect ratio of 3.0 with the long axis (75 nm) along the polarization of the excitation signal. We discuss the origin of these observations.

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Amitabh Ghoshal, Grady Webb-Wood, Clarisse Mazuir, and Pieter G. Kik "Coherent far-field excitation of surface plasmons using resonantly tuned metal nanoparticle arrays", Proc. SPIE 5927, Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties III, 592714 (26 August 2005); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.617686

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