Overview

The increasing sophistication of nanofabrication techniques such as electron beam lithography has made possible the investigation of the optical properties of ordered arrays of small metal nanostructures. Such structures can sustain coherent electron oscillations or surface plasmons when excited by light in the visible or near-infrared regime of the spectrum. This resuls in interesting phenomena such as a tightly confined electromagnetic field near the particle surface, which allows the creation of small light volumes below the diffraction limit of "classical" optics.

The degree of confinement can be tuned both by particle geometry and excitation wavelength, and ordered one- and two-dimensional arrays of metal nanoparticles can serve as ultra-small "light-pipes" that confine and channel electromagnetic energy on the sub-micron scale. Such structures are well suited for biological sensing due to high gradients in the electric field near the particle surface which attract biological molecules to hot-spots near the surface for sensing.

We are investigating design criteria for low-loss, planar metallic nanostructures with optical functionality by analyzing the fundamental trade-off between tight energy confinement and loss and are working towards their integration with conventional fiber-optics.

References

Questions?

Please contact Oskar Painter if there are any questions.