Tuning the optical transmission through a homogeneous doped semiconductor film by applying an external magnetic field

We theoretically and numerically studied the transmission of light through a homogeneous doped semiconductor film with a Drude tensor in the presence of an external magnetic field. The magneto-induced homogeneous metal films are found to exhibit a magneto-induced light transparency due to cyclotron resonance. In particular, the surface plasmon (SP) resonance mode of the magneto-induced metal film move to higher frequencies with increasing magnetic field, bringing about large changes in the extraordinary light transmission peaks predicted to occur in such a magneto-induced semiconductor film.     

Transmission of an obliquely incident beam of light through small apertures in a metal film

We recently found that the intensity of the electric near field of a triangular aperture in a metal film is strongly localized at one edge of the aperture for incident light polarized perpendicular to this edge. Previous numerical calculations of the near field of a triangular aperture in a planar metal film, using the field susceptibility technique, yielded a nearly quantitative agreement with the experiments. Using this numerical technique, we have investigated the influence of an obliquely incident plane wave on the near field of small circular and triangular apertures. An interpretation of the numerical results leads to a deeper understanding of the way in which light transmission through the aperture is excited. The data suggest that after excitation of currents in the metal film by the incident light, a scattering of these currents by the aperture generates the near field of the aperture. We found that the excitation of small apertures (size <100 nm) is due to a tangential magnetic field whereas the perpendicular electric field plays no role. The excitation of a small aperture can thus be described exclusively by a magnetic polarizability. We found that for thin metal films an interference of the scattered field with the field transmitted through the metal film changes the near field pattern. PACS 41.20.-q; 42.79.Ag; 68.37.Uv; 78.67.-n     

Proposed electrically-pumped,III–V-metal hybrid plasmonic lasers

We propose an electrically-pumped hybrid plasmonic laser through the integration of a semiconductor quantum well laser with a thin metal film. Due to the coupling between the TM waveguide mode in the III–V active layer and the LRSPP mode around the metal thin film, light can be confined in both regions and optical gain can be provided by the active layer. We have shown that the quasi-odd supermode is the preferred lasing mode because of its larger confinement factor and lower modal loss compared to the quasi-even supermode. Through optimizing the gap distance between the active region and the metal film, we can obtain low threshold and a large amount of optical energy confined around the metal film for the hybrid plasmonic laser.     

Mechanism of the superenhanced light transmission through 2D subwavelength coaxial hole arrays

By using FDTD numerical simulations, we show that mechanism that is different from surface plasmon polaritons set up by the periodicity at the in-plane metal surfaces may account for the superenhanced light transmission through coaxial hole arrays. We propose that resonant cavity-enhanced light transmission is responsible for it. When an axis is introduced into a hole, slits of definite length are formed. We suppose that a coaxial hole will support the standing waves of Fabry–Pérot-like modes with frequency higher than its cutoff frequency if its gap is small enough in comparison to the wavelength of the incident light and if the metal film is thick enough.     

Surface-plasmon-polariton-induced suppressed transmission through ultrathin metal disk arrays

We report surface-plasmon-polariton-induced suppressed transmission through two-dimensional arrays of isolated metal disks with a thickness comparable to optical skin depth of the metal. A transmittance dip of -17.5 dB is achieved at the resonant wavelength of 1524 nm, compared to -12 dB for closed film. Coupling the light into the surface-plasmon polariton results in enhanced absorption, which is potentially interesting in solar cell applications.     

Two resonances effect for light transmission assisted with surface plasmon through perforated metal film

When light is incident on a nonplanar metal surface, an oscillating dipole is excited at the entrance openings. We show that the enhanced transmission assisted with surface plasmon (SP) through a perforated metal film results from two different SP resonances effects: (i) zero-order Fabry-Perot resonance effect where each air hole can be considered as a section of metallic waveguide, forming a low-quality-factor resonator, and many dipoles are arranged inside the nanoholes region; and (ii) structure-factor-induced charges self-tunnelling effect due to the well-recognized surface structure periodicity, where the positive or negative charges can respectively tunnel into the right surface through the metal walls. Furthermore, when light transmits through the double-layer perforated metal films, the different transport behaviors are also clearly shown, which convinces the existence of dual SP resonances effect.     

Transmission through a perforated metal film by applying an external magnetic field

We theoretically and numerically studied the transmission of light through a subwavelength-perforated metal film in the presence of an external magnetic field. The perforated metal films are found to exhibit a magnetoinduced light transparency due to cyclotron resonance. The localized waveguide surface plasmon (SP) resonance mode and periodicity-structure-factor-induced SP resonance mode are discussed by application of a static magnetic field. The field distributions are localized separately on the left and right metal-air surfaces for structure-factor-induced resonance mode. And for localized cavities resonance mode, standing electromagnetic fields can also be entirely localized inside the nanohole region.     

Enhanced optical transmission through a nanoslit by coupling light between periodic strips and metal film

Surface plasmon resonance （SPR） is obtained by exciting the surface plasmon （SP） at the metal and dielectric interface, which can greatly enhance the extraordinary optical transmission （EOT） through a nanoslit milled in the metal film. We present a structure with a 50-nm-wide silver nanoslit for EOT by coupling light into the dielectric interlayer between periodic strips and a metal film. When the period of the metallic strips is equal to the wavelength of the SPR, the transmission efficiency of 187.6 through the nanoslit is enhanced. The metallic strip width over the nanoslit is optimized to improve transmission efficiency, and the maximal efficiency of 204.3 is achieved.     

High-optical-throughput individual nanoscale aperture in a multilayered metallic film

The optical transmission of an individual subwavelength aperture in a multilayered metal film is shown to be enhanced compared with that of a homogeneous metal film. The enhancement effect is due to the light coupling to surface plasmon excitation facilitated by a film periodicity. The sensitivity of the transmission to the dielectric filling of the aperture is also shown. The latter effect can be used to switch and control the transmittance. Devices based on enhanced transmission through nanosized apertures can find applications in high-density optical and magneto-optical data storage, high-resolution microscopy, and photolithography, where nanoscale light sources with high-optical-power throughput are required, as well as in sensor applications.     

Enhanced light transmission through cascaded metal films perforated with periodic hole arrays

We report experimental results on enhanced light transmission through two periodically perforated metal films separated by a layer of dielectric. A perforated metal film (single metallic structure) exhibits extraordinary optical transmission, and when two such perforated metal films are spaced by a dielectric layer (cascaded metallic structure), the transmission is further increased. The maximum transmission of the cascaded metallic structure, which depends on the distance between the two metal films, can be more than 400% greater than that of a corresponding single metallic structure. It is proposed that the coupling of surface plasmon polaritons between the two metal films is involved in the process.     

Invertible dark-center diffraction of the metal film induced by femtosecond laser

We found reversible dark-center diffraction of the transmitted probe beam passing through the chromium film, which is induced by the pump femtosecond laser. The dark-center diffraction of the transmitted probe beam appears and disappears with and without the pump beam. A view of diffractive optics with binary phase plate is put forward, which explains the reversible dark-center diffractive optical phenomenon. The pre-ablated hole on the metal film can be regarded as a uniform light filed without phase modulation, the surrounding circular part around the pre-ablated hole can be regarded as “phase modulated”. Therefore, this diffraction optic view might be helpful for us to understand the phase change of the metal film introduced by the femtosecond laser pulse.     

Second harmonic generation of light in the Kretschmann attenuated total reflection geometry in the presence of surface roughness

Abstract

Using a computer simulation approach we study the generation of second harmonic light in reflection and in transmission in the Kretschmann attenuated total reflection geometry. In this geometry a thin metal film is deposited on the planar base of a dielectric prism, through which p-polarized light is incident on the film. The back surface of the film, which separates the film from vacuum, is a one-dimensional, randomly rough surface, whose generators are normal to the plane of incidence of the light. The nonlinearity responsible for the second harmonic generation is assumed to arise at the prism-metal and metal–vacuum interfaces, and thus enters the problem only through the boundary conditions at these interfaces at the harmonic frequency. The source terms entering these boundary conditions are obtained from the solutions of the corresponding scattering and transmission problems at the fundamental frequency. It is found that a peak in the angular dependence of the intensity of both the transmitted and reflected second harmonic light occurs in the directions normal to the mean scattering surface, in addition to an enhanced backscattering peak in the retroreflection direction. The enhanced transmission peak occurs in the non-radiative region, and therefore cannot be observed in the far field.     

Temperature effects in the photolytic LCVD of platinum

The photolytic laser chemical vapor deposition (LCVD) rate of platinum from its bishexafluoroacetylacetonate precurser has been measured in situ and in real time. Optical transmission of the 350 nm photolysis light through the deposited platinum film and a transparent glass substrate is monitored and analysed in detail. From these measurements, as well as measurements of the reflected light, the fraction of the laser beam power absorbed in the metal film is found. The latter allows a simple estimate of the laser-induced temperature rise at the metal surface. It is shown that even rather small temperature increases of the order of several tens of degrees centigrade can completely change the photolysis mechanism and hence drastically influence the photolytic LCVD rate. A simple modification of Lax's model, in which a temperature dependent thermal conductivity of the substrate is introduced, is used to describe the laser-induced heating of a strongly absorbing thin metal film on a glass substrate.     

Extraordinary light transmission through a metal film perforated by a subwavelength hole array

It is shown that, depending on the incident wave frequency and the system geometry, the extraordinary transmission of light through a metal film perforated by an array of subwavelength holes can be described by one of the three mechanisms: the “transparency window” in the metal, excitation of the Fabry–Perot resonance of a collective mode produced by the hybridization of evanescence modes of the holes and surface plasmons, and excitation of a plasmon on the rear boundary of the film. The excitation of a plasmon resonance on the front boundary of the metal film does not make any substantial contribution to the transmission coefficient, although introduces a contribution to the reflection coefficient.     

Enhanced light transmission through a single subwavelength aperture

The optical transmission through a subwavelength aperture in a metal film is strongly enhanced when the incident light is resonant with surface plasmons at the corrugated metal surface surrounding the aperture. Conversely, the aperture acts as a novel probe of the surface plasmons, yielding useful insights for optimizing the transmission enhancement. For the optimal corrugation geometry, a set of concentric circular grooves, three times more light is transmitted through the central subwavelength aperture than directly impinges upon it. This effect is useful in the fabrication of near-field optical devices with extremely high optical throughput.     

Light radiation through a transparent cathode plate with single-walled carbon nanotube field emitters

In the conventional carbon nanotube backlight units (CNT-BLUs), light passes through the phosphor-coated anode glass plate, which thus faces closely the thin film transistor (TFT) backplate of a liquid crystal display panel. This configuration makes heat dissipation structurally difficult because light emission and heat generation occur simultaneously at the anode. We propose a novel configuration of a CNT-BLU where the cathode rather than the anode faces the TFT backplate by turning it upside down. In this design, light passes through the transparent cathode glass plate while heating occurs at the anode. We demonstrated a novel design of CNT-BLU by fabricating transparent single-walled CNT field emitters on the cathode and by coating a reflecting metal layer on the anode. This study hopefully provides a clue to solve the anode-heating problem which would be inevitably confronted for high-luminance and large-area CNT-BLUs.     

Second harmonic generation with surface plasmons in alkali metals

We calculate the reflected second harmonic light from alkali metal films with the simultaneous excitation of the surface plasmon mode. The harmonic generation from a sodium film at the ruby laser frequency increases by over two orders of magnitude at the angle for surface plasmon excitation. The harmonic enhancement is closely related to the surface plasmon density and exhibits a strong dependence on the angle of incidence, film thickness, and the linear optical constants of the metal film.     

Directional surface plasmon scattering from silver films

We discuss the bright hollow cone of scattered light from a silver film due to surface plasmon excitation. The power per solid angle scattered into the cone on the prism side of the metal film is an order of magnitude greater than that scattered on the air side. By photographing the cone, we obtain the spatial surface roughness spectrum of the metal film. Results of these experiments are compared to linear scattering theory.     

Enhanced transmission through randomly rough surfaces

We present an experimental and theoretical study of two enhancement effects that occur in the transmission of light through a thin metal film whose illuminated surface is a one-dimensional random surface while its back surface is planar. The first is a well defined peak in the antispecular direction in the angular distribution of the intensity of the incoherent component of the transmitted light (enhanced transmission). The second is an additionally well defined peak in the forward direction in the angular distribution of the intensity of the incoherent component of the transmitted light, when the illuminated surface is not only randomly rough but has even symmetry as well (enhanced refraction). A fully automated bidirectional reflectometer has been used to measure the intensity of the incoherent component of He-Ne laser light transmitted through gold and silver films of these two types and the results are compared with the predictions of theoretical calculations of the enhancement effects.     

Light focusing in linear arranged symmetric nanoparticle trimer on metal film system

Benefiting from the induced image charge on film surface,the nanoparticle aggregating on metal exhibits interesting optical properties.In this work,a linear metal nanoparticle trimer on metal film system has been investigated to explore the novel optical phenomenon.Both the electric field and surface charge distributions demonstrate the light is focused on film greatly by the nanoparticles at two sides,which could be strongly modulated by the wavelength of incident light.And the influence of nanoparticle in middle on this light focusing ability has also been studied here,which is explained by the plasmon hybridization theory.Our finding about light focusing in nanoparticle aggregating on metal film not only enlarges the novel phenomenon of surface plasmon but also has great application prospect in the field of surface-enhanced spectra,surface catalysis,solar cells,water splitting,etc.