Discussion on Fresnel's mirrors and Young's double-slit interferometers

In this work, Fresnel's mirror and Young's double-slit experiments are compared. Numerical calculations show that Fresnel's experiment and Young's experiment present significant differences between their interference patterns when the optical source is extended rather than point-like. Those differences agree with the analogous between the overlapping of two quasi-monochromatic beams on the temporal domain (the analogous of Young's experiment) and these same beams superimposed previous modulation with sawtooth-wave (the analogous of Fresnel's interferometer). The implemented algorithms allow evaluating the cases of fully spatially coherence, fully spatially incoherence and spatially partially coherence. Computer simulations are presented to show the validity of our proposal.     

Young's double-slit experiment in photonic crystals

We present an experimental and numerical study of the transmission of a photonic crystal perforated by two subwavelength slits, separated by two wavelengths. The experimental near-field image of the double-slit design of the photonic crystal shows an interference pattern, which is analogous to Young's experiment. This interference arises as a consequence of the excitation of surface states of the photonic crystals and agrees very well with the simulations.     

A novel fiber optic ring-down interferometer for sensing

A ring-down interferometer (RDI) based on a modified Mach–Zehnder structure by incorporating a pair of mirrors with very high reflectivity into each of its two arms, respectively is proposed in this paper. Launching a coherent light pulse into the interferometer, in each arm, pulse ring-down occurs between its two mirrors and outputs a chain of pulses. The two chains of pulses from the two arms combine and interfere pulse by pulse at the detector and the difference of the light phase between the two arms will be enlarged linearly in proportion to the times of ring-down.     

Far infrared surface plasmon propagation

New experimental evidence is presented which shows that, contrary to an earlier report, far-infrared surface plasmons at metal-air interfaces propagate long distances (tens of centimeters or longer).     

Study of interference in a double-slit without walls by plasmon tomography techniques

We investigate the free propagation of two parallel surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) beams using plasmon tomography. In the Fourier-plane images, we observed interference features that are not in correspondence with the images of SPPs on the sample's surface. We clearly observed that the interference maxima and minima are distributed over an arc of a circle. We explain the characteristics of the observed interference patterns assuming that each SPP beam can be considered as a “slit without walls”. We discuss important implications of this work for SPP tomography and interferometric plasmonic sensors.     

Sub-wavelength interference in the field assisted by surface plasmons

We present a theoretical study of the optical transmission from a thin metallic double slit. The second-order correlation function as a function of the displacement of the detectors for different values of slit separation is studied. It is shown that surface plasmons excited at one slit and propagating to the other slit modulate the coincidence counts with the variation of slit separation. Sub-wavelength interference effect has also been observed for the field assisted by surface plasmons. It is also shown that the second order interference-diffraction pattern changes with slit separation and at some particular value of slit separation it changes into the Hanbury Brown and Twiss (HBT) effect.     

Numerical synthesis of metallic nanostructures for enhancing the emission of a dipole through surface plasmon coupling

In this study, we numerically synthesize a two-dimensional metallic nanostructure consisting of a Au half-space and two separate Ag elliptical cylinders by the simulated annealing (SA) method. The simulated nanostructure is so designed that the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) and the localized surface plasmon (LSP) are simultaneously excited at their common resonant wavelength (535 nm), leading to the enhancement of emission of a nearby dipole source. This enhancement effect is more significant than that of the case where only one of the SPP and LSP is excited. In numerically synthesizing a metallic nanostructure, we try to maximize both the downward emission (in the direction away from the metallic structure) and the emission efficiency. A cost function is defined as some combination of the downward emission and the emission efficiency. We adjust the simulated structure by SA to minimize the cost function at a designated resonant wavelength, and calculate and analyze the spectra of downward emission and emission efficiency for the optimal structure. Other structures are also investigated for comparison. From numerical simulations, it is demonstrated that the enhancement of dipole emission is better for optimization at wavelength 535 nm than at other wavelengths. Note that the downward emission and the emission efficiency can reach maxima almost simultaneously when the SPP and the LSP couple effectively at a common resonant wavelength. This implies that the lighting efficiency of green light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can be increased by the coupling effect at a common resonant wavelength of SPP and LSP.     

Experimental observation of a practical limit on enhancement of the spontaneous emission rate in blue GaN-LEDs by mediating surface plasmons

High modulation speed of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) is of primary importance for applications in optical communication. To this end, we experimentally investigated enhancement behaviors of the spontaneous emission rate (SER) of electron–hole pairs in blue InGaN/GaN LEDs by mediating surface plasmons (SPs). The coupling strength of the electron–hole recombination into SPs is controlled by etching the p-GaN layer between the active and metal layers to form thicknesses between 40 nm and 10 nm. While a tendency of increasing SER is theoretically expected for a smaller separation, the maximum value SER enhancement has a practical limit of about 2.5 at λ = 441 nm, and separation of 20 nm due to damage on the p-GaN layer caused by the etching process.     

Modeling of a surface plasmon polariton interferometer

We model the operation of a micro-optical interferometer for surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) that comprises an SPP beam-splitter formed by equivalent scatterers lined up and equally spaced. The numerical calculations are carried out by using a relatively simple vectorial dipolar model for multiple SPP scattering [Phys. Rev. B 67 (2003) 165405]. The SPP beam-splitter is simulated elucidating the influence of system parameters, such as the angle of SPP beam incidence, scattering particle size, and inter-particle distance, on the splitting efficiency and phase difference between the transmitted and reflected beams. It is found that the splitting efficiency is very sensitive to the size of scatterers and angle of incidence. Comparing our simulations with experimental data available in the literature, we conclude that this approach can be used, with certain limitations, for modelling of SPP components assembled of individual scatterers, e.g., beam-splitters and interferometers, and suggest further improvements of the model used.     

Hydrodynamical model for bulk and surface plasmons in cylindrical wires

In this paper, we study the electrostatic surface and volume modes of a cylindrical wire using the hydrodynamical model of plasmon excitation, which allows an analytical study of dispersion effects. We solve the hydrodynamical equations for a cylindrical wire geometry, obtaining new analytical expressions for the bulk and surface modes. New dispersion relations are obtained for each type of mode and numerical solutions are given. We analyze in detail the characteristics of the solutions and their differences with previous treatments based on non-dispersive models. These differences become important for wires of small radii, particularly in the range of few nanometers.     

Utilization of surface plasmon resonance of Au/Pt nanoparticles for highly photosensitive ZnO nanorods network based plasmon field effect transistor

Hydrothermally processed highly photosensitive ZnO nanorods based plasmon field effect transistors (PFETs) have been demonstrated utilizing the surface plasmon resonance coupling of Au and Pt nanoparticles at Au/Pt and ZnO interface. A significantly enhanced photocurrent was observed due to the plasmonic effect of the metal nanoparticles (NPs). The Pt coated PFETs showed I_on/I_off ratio more than 3 × 10⁴ under the dark condition, with field-effect mobility of 26 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹ and threshold voltage of −2.7 V. Moreover, under the illumination of UV light (λ = 350 nm) the PFET revealed photocurrent gain of 10⁵ under off-state (−5 V) of operation. Additionally, the electrical performance of PFETs was investigated in detail on the basis of charge transfer at metal/ZnO interface. The ZnO nanorods growth temperature was preserved at 110 °C which allowed a low temperature, economical and simple method to develop highly photosensitive ZnO nanorods network based PFETs for large scale production.     

Investigation of surface plasmon resonance using cylindrical dielectric-metal-dielectric (C-DMD) plasmonic configuration

In this paper we have proposed a technique based on image analysis of the surface plasmon excitation at the metal-dielectric interface of inside silver coated fused silica capillary glass tube. Chemical deposition technique has been used for the deposition of silver. Angular interrogation in Kretschmann-like configuration is realized by non-radial transverse illumination of this cylindrical dielectric-metal-dielectric (C-DMD) structure with a He–Ne laser source. Here the uniform film deposition of the inside surface of the capillary is not that crucial except within the transversely illuminated working area concerned. Moreover, the proposed technique has been validated experimentally for sensing different aqueous dielectric samples inserted inside the tube.     

D-shape polymer optical fibres for surface plasmon resonance sensing

We experimentally studied three different D-shape polymer optical fibres with an exposed core for their applications as surface plasmon resonance sensors. The first one was a conventional D-shape fibre with no microstructure while in two others the fibre core was surrounded by two rings of air holes. In one of the microstructured fibres we introduced special absorbing inclusions placed outside the microstructure to attenuate leaky modes. We compared the performance of the surface plasmon resonance sensors based on the three fibres. We showed that the fibre bending enhances the resonance in all investigated fibres. The measured sensitivity of about 610 nm/RIU for the refractive index of glycerol solution around 1.350 is similar in all fabricated sensors. However, the spectral width of the resonance curve is significantly lower for the fibre with inclusions suppressing the leaky modes.     

On the non-existence of hydrodynamic solution of surface plasmons at the bimetallic interface

It is shown that for an abrupt bimetallic interface a hydrodynamic solution for interface plasmons does not exist. It appears that this result is valid irrespective of the choice of of the additional boundary condition, thereby suggesting a careful look at the use of usual hydrodynamic equations for a bimetallic interface.     

Polarization-insensitive surface plasmon resonance sensor by cross-slit metallic periodic arrays

We propose a plasmonic structure to obtain polarization-insensitive localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) sensor, which consists of cross-slit metallic periodic arrays embedded in the background material. Numerical simulation illustrates that the mechanism of the LSPR sensor is based on the shift of the Fabry–Perot cavity mode resonance peak in the spectrum as the change of the dielectric material properties for the near fields. And one of the transmission dips of the structure is very sensitive to the background materials; the structure could gain the sensitivity (nm/RIU) more than 500 nm/RIU. Meanwhile, the structure holds great potential to achieve high-performance sensors in practical application due to polarization-insensitive virtue.     

Multiple beams surface plasmon interference generation: A theoretical analysis

In this paper, multiple beams surface plasmon (SP) interference generation based on prism coupling technique is theoretically analyzed and presented. The proposed multiple beams SP interference configuration is investigated for nanolithography application for two-dimensional feature fabrication. The configuration is then numerically and experimentally analyzed by employing aluminum metal at 364-nm illumination wavelengths to realize high resolution and high aspect ratio two-dimensional periodic nanoscale dot array patterns on the recording medium.     

Understanding of optical readout accuracy with micromechanical sensor cantilever monitored by surface plasmon resonance

This paper reports a concept of micromechanical sensing of environmental condition using the surface plasmon resonance phenomenon. We calculate the resolution in the cantilever bending monitoring using the transfer matrix numerical method. We show that the cantilever deflection can be monitored with a resolution in the nanometer range. The SPs resonance behavior of the multilayer stack in the case of gold cantilever is discussed. We believe that this concept permits a low cost and ease of fabrication for a large bi-dimensional array of sensors with an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio.     

Nanotube based hybrid plasmon polariton waveguide for propagation loss reduction and enhanced field confinement inside the gap region at the subwavelength scale

We present a comprehensive numerical investigation on the guiding properties of a nanotube based hybrid plasmonic waveguide, which comprises a high-index dielectric nanotube placed above a metallic substrate. It is shown that the incorporation of the nanotube offers additional freedom for tuning the optical performance of the hybrid plasmonic structure when compared to the traditional nanowire based hybrid counterparts, which enables further reduction of the propagation loss and enhanced field confinement inside the gap region, while simultaneously maintaining a subwavelength mode size at appropriate geometries. Systematic geometric parameters mapping considering the size of the nanotube and the dimension of the gap reveals that the tradeoff between the confinement and loss could be further balanced through optimizing key physical parameters. These investigations potentially lay the groundwork for the further applications of nanotube based hybrid structures.     

杨氏双缝干涉实验中的光谱奇异现象

基于部分相干光的传输理论,研究了杨氏双缝干涉实验中的光谱奇异现象。发现在杨氏双缝干涉实验干涉场区中的某个点的光谱奇异现象,它会随着某些参量(如源光谱宽度Γ′,缝宽参量ε,相对空间相干度Δ0)的变化而改变,指出该现象可应用于信息的编码及自由空间的信息传输。