Optical antennas and plasmonics

Optical antenna is a nanoscale miniaturisation of radio or microwave antennas that is also governed by the rule of plasmonics. We introduce various types of optical antenna and make an overview of recent developments in optical antenna research. The role of local and surface plasmons in optical antenna is explained through antenna resonance and resonance conditions for specific metal structures are explicitly obtained. A strong electric field is shown to exist within a highly localised region of optical antennas such as antenna feed gap or apertures. We describe physical properties of field enhancement in apertures (circular and rectangular holes) and gaps (infinite slit and feed gap), as well as experimental techniques measuring enhanced electric vector field. We discuss the analogies and differences between conventional and optical antennas with a projection for future developments.     

Spin plasmonics in magnetism

We discuss a new class of phenomena that we call ＂spin plasmonics＂. It is motivated by three different recent trends of physics research： （i） spintronics, （ii） plasmonics, and （iii） topological properties as is exemplified by the quantized Hall effect. This involves the physics of the ＂magnetic surface plasmon＂ （MSP） which provides for an analog of the edge states discussed in the quantized Hall effect. Their properties can be easily tuned by an external magnetic field. They are coupled to the electromagnetic field and can be injected into metallic structures and induce spin and charge currents and hold the promise of miniturization of nonreciprocal devices.     

Tunable composite nanoparticle for plasmonics

We present a numerical study of the tunability properties of a plasmonic subwavelength particle deposited on a metallic slab. The particle is composed of a metallic part, supporting a localized plasmon mode, separated from the slab by a dielectric spacer. It is shown that the position of the resonance wavelength can be modified over a large spectral range by changing either the spacer thickness by a few tens of nanometers or its susceptibility within the range of usual dielectrics. A linear relation is observed between the resonance wavelength and the spacer permittivity.     

太赫兹波段表面等离子光子学研究进展

表面等离子光子学是研究金属、 半导体纳米结构材料独特的光学特性, 是目前光子学中最有吸引力、 发展最快的领域之一. 伴随着微/纳制造技术与计算机模拟技术的进步, 表面等离子光子学在可见光、 红外、 太赫兹以及微波频域得到了广泛研究, 在高灵敏生化传感、 亚波长光波导、 近场光学显微、 纳米光刻等领域有潜在的应用价值. 特别是人工超材料的发展, 为自然界长期缺乏响应太赫兹波的材料和器件奠定了基础, 从而也促进了太赫兹波段表面等离子光子学的研究. 本文从太赫兹表面等离子波的激发、 传导、 最新应用及未来发展趋势等几个方面进行了回顾和讨论, 将最新研究成果展示给读者.     

Active plasmonics: current status

Techniques for active modulation and control of plasmonic signals in future highly‐integrated nanophotonic devices have advanced rapidly in recent years, with recent innovations extending performance into the terahertz frequency and femtojoule‐per‐bit switching energy domains. As thoughts turn towards the development of practical device structures, key technologies are compared in this review and prospects are assessed for the future development of the field.     

Metal‐nanoparticle plasmonics

The rapid emergence of nanoplasmonics as a novel technology has been driven by recent progress in the fabrication, characterization, and understanding of metal‐nanoparticle systems. In this review, we highlight some of the key advances in each of these areas. We emphasize the basic physical understanding and experimental techniques that will enable a new generation of applications in nano‐optics.     

Engineering gold alloys for plasmonics

We demonstrate the formation of metal alloys in Au–Ag, Au–Cu and Au–Pd systems and the experimental determination of their optical properties using optical transmission and reflection spectroscopy. The optical constants define the plasmon resonance wavelength and electromagnetic field local intensity. However, the optical constants behavior cannot be precisely modeled based on the data of pure metals due to unknown morphology and composition of the alloy. It has to be determined experimentally. We demonstrate the surface-enhanced Raman scattering using alloy metals. Depending on the metal to which molecules are adsorbed, we observe enhancement of different Raman modes. It is mainly due to the chemical enhancement effect between metal and molecules.     

Design of sharp bends with transformation plasmonics

We report a design method of surface plasmon polaritons sharp bends based on transformation optics. Plasmonic waveguide bends with different angles, which possess little radiation loss, are proposed. Transformation media can be simply achieved with homogeneous and nonmagnetic materials, which can be constructed by altering two different dielectric films. Electromagnetic simulations by a finite-element method on detailed examples have been performed to validate the designs.     

Chiral plasmonics and enhanced chiral light-matter interactions

Chirality, which describes the broken mirror symmetry in geometric structures, exists macroscopically in our daily life as well as microscopically down to molecular levels. Correspondingly, chiral molecules interact differently with circularly polarized light exhibiting opposite handedness(left-handed and right-handed). However, the interaction between chiral molecules and chiral light is very weak. In contrast, artificial chiral plasmonic structures can generate "super-chiral" plasmonic near-field, leading to enhanced chiral light-matter(or chiroptical) interactions. The "super-chiral" near-field presents different amplitude and phase under opposite handedness incidence, which can be utilized to engineer linear and nonlinear chiroptical interactions. Specifically,in the interaction between quantum emitters and chiral plasmonic structures, the chiral hot spots can favour the emission with a specific handedness. This article reviews the state-of-the-art research on the design, fabrication and chiroptical response of different chiral plasmonic nanostructures or metasurfaces. This review also discusses enhanced chiral light-matter interactions that are essential for applications like chirality sensing, chiral selective light emitting and harvesting. In the final part, the review ends with a perspective on future directions of chiral plasmonics.     

Mid-IR plasmonics and photomodification with Ag films

The optical properties of semicontinuous silver films have been studied in the mid infrared. The film extinction spectra are shown to be well tailored by the deposition conditions and post-fabrication photomodification with both nanosecond and picosecond laser pulses at 10.6 μm. The photomodification results in a decrease of the extinction above the laser wavelength. We find that the induced changes in the optical responses of the films are both wavelength and polarization selective. This technique allows the creation of long-pass filters for the mid-IR range in accord with the earlier theory.     

New progress of plasmonics in complex metal nanostructures

Noble metal nanostructures possess novel optical properties because of their collective electronic oscillations,known as surface plasmons(SPs).The resonance of SPs strongly depends on the material,surrounding environment,as well as the geometry of the nanostructures.Complex metal nanostructures have attracted research interest because of the degree of freedom in tailoring the plasmonic properties for more advanced applications that are unattainable by simple ones.In this review,we discuss the plasmonic properties of several typical types of complex metal nanostructures,that is,electromagnetically coupled nanoparticles(NPs),NPs/metal films,NPs/nanowires(NWs),NWs/NWs,and metal nanostructures supported or coated by dielectrics.The electromagnetic field enhancement and surface-enhanced Raman scattering applications are mainly discussed in the NPs systems where localized SPs have a key role.Propagating surface plasmon polaritons and relevant applications in plasmonic routers and logic gates using NWs network are also reviewed.The effect of dielectric substrates and surroundings of metal nanostructures to the plasmonic properties is also discussed.     

Oblique angle deposition and its applications in plasmonics

Plasmonics based on localized surface plasmon resonance （LSPR） has found many exciting appli- cations recently. Those applications usually require a good morphological and structural control of metallic nanostructures. Oblique angle deposition （OAD） has been demonstrated as a powerful technique for various plasmonic applications due to its advantages in controlling the size, shape, and composition of metallic nanostructures. In this review, we focus on the fabrication of metallic nanostructures by OAD and their applications in plasmonics. After a brief introduction to OAD technique, recent progress of applying OAD in fabricating noble metallic nanostructures for LSPR sensing, surface-enhanced Raman scattering, surface-enhanced infrared absorption, metal-enhanced fluorescence, and metamaterials, and their corresponding properties are reviewed. The future requirements for OAD plasmonics applications are also discussed.     

The origin of ultrasensitive SERS sensing beyond plasmonics

Plasmon-free surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) substrates have attracted tremendous attention for their abundant sources, excellent chemical stability, superior biocompatibility, good signal uniformity, and unique selectivity to target molecules. Recently, researchers have made great progress in fabricating novel plasmon-free SERS substrates and exploring new enhancement strategies to improve their sensitivity. This review summarizes the recent developments of plasmon-free SERS substrates and specially focuses on the enhancement mechanisms and strategies. Furthermore, the promising applications of plasmon-free SERS substrates in biomedical diagnosis, metal ions and organic pollutants sensing, chemical and biochemical reactions monitoring, and photoelectric characterization are introduced. Finally, current challenges and future research opportunities in plasmon-free SERS substrates are briefly discussed.     

Investigation of plasmonics resonance infrared bowtie metal antenna

An approximate resonance wavelength equation that varies with metal antenna structure size is developed to design a bowtie gold metal antenna working at near-infrared (IR) wavelength. Bowtie antenna structures with resonance wavelength of 1.06 μm, 1.55 μm and 10.6 μm are designed based on this equation. A finite-difference time domain (FDTD) algorithm with total field scattered field (TFSF) source simulation shows the resonance wavelength of the designed structures being precisely in agreement with the expected wavelengths from the equation. Planar integration of the metal bowtie antennas is discussed as well. Gold nanohole bowtie antenna arrays are fabricated and the near-field optical transmission properties of the nanohole array are investigated with a near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM). Our experimental results verify the near-field optical transmission performance and further demonstrate that they are in agreement with the theoretical calculation results. The high enhancement efficiency and integration of the metal bowtie antennas open the possibility of a wide application in IR optoelectronics detection and imaging.     

Deterministic aperiodic nanostructures for photonics and plasmonics applications

This review focuses on the optical properties and device applications of deterministic aperiodic media generated by mathematical rules with spectral features that interpolate in a tunable fashion between periodic crystals and disordered random media. These structures are called Deterministic Aperiodic Nano Structures (DANS) and can be implemented in different materials (linear and nonlinear) and physical systems as diverse as dielectric multilayers, optical gratings, photonic waveguides and nanoparticle arrays. Among their distinctive optical properties are the formation of multi‐fractal bandgaps and characteristic optical resonances, called critical modes, with unusual localization, scaling and transport properties. The goal of the paper is to provide a detailed review of the conceptual foundation and the physical mechanisms governing the complex optical response of DANS in relation to the engineering of novel devices and functionalities. The discussion will mostly focus on passive and active planar structures with enhanced light‐matter coupling for photonics and plasmonics technologies.     

Plasmas for medicine

Plasma medicine is an innovative and emerging field combining plasma physics, life science and clinical medicine. In a more general perspective, medical application of physical plasma can be subdivided into two principal approaches. (i) “Indirect” use of plasma-based or plasma-supplemented techniques to treat surfaces, materials or devices to realize specific qualities for subsequent special medical applications, and (ii) application of physical plasma on or in the human (or animal) body to realize therapeutic effects based on direct interaction of plasma with living tissue. The field of plasma applications for the treatment of medical materials or devices is intensively researched and partially well established for several years. However, plasma medicine in the sense of its actual definition as a new field of research focuses on the use of plasma technology in the treatment of living cells, tissues, and organs. Therefore, the aim of the new research field of plasma medicine is the exploitation of a much more differentiated interaction of specific plasma components with specific structural as well as functional elements or functionalities of living cells. This interaction can possibly lead either to stimulation or inhibition of cellular function and be finally used for therapeutic purposes. During recent years a broad spectrum of different plasma sources with various names dedicated for biomedical applications has been reported. So far, research activities were mainly focused on barrier discharges and plasma jets working at atmospheric pressure.     

Angle-resolved reflectance and surface plasmonics of the MAX phases

We investigate theoretically the optical response of bulk samples and thin films of the MAX phase materials, accounting for their large electrical anisotropy. We reveal the unusual behavior of the reflection and transmission spectra as a function of the incidence angle and predict the effect of the inverse total internal reflection. We also investigate the behavior of the surface plasmon modes in bulk samples and thin films and analyze the difference between MAX materials and conventional metals.     

Impact of optical antenna and plasmonics on infrared imagers

The advent of nanophotonics allows devising and fabricating optical antenna as the advanced optical structures that can enhance light–matter interaction in quantum structures such as quantum wells. Improving infrared photodetector performance is discussed theoretically in this paper. We also investigate our recent demonstration of optical antenna integrated on quantum well infrared photodetector which improves the performance of the detector as can be evidence in responsivity of the detector.