ABSTRACT
Dielectric nano-antennas are promising elements in nanophotonics due to their low material loss and strong leaky-mode optical resonances. In particular, light scattering can be easily manipulated using dielectric nano-antennas. To take full advantage of dielectric nano-antennas and explore their new optical applications, it is necessary to fabricate three-dimensional nano-structures under arbitrary conditions such as in non-planar substrates. Here, we demonstrate full-visible-range resonant light scattering from a single dielectric optical nano-rod antenna. The nano-rod antenna was formed by electron beam-induced deposition (EBID), a promising three-dimensional nanofabrication technique with a high spatial resolution. The nano-rods consist of amorphous alloys of C and O, with a width of 180 nm on average and a length of 4.5 µm. Polarization-resolved dark-field scattering measurements show that both transverse-electric and transverse-magnetic mode resonances cover the full visible range as the height of the nano-rod antenna varies from 90 to 280 nm. Numerical simulations successfully reproduce the measured scattering features and characterize the modal properties, using the critical points dispersive dielectric constant of the EBID carbonaceous material. Our deep understanding of resonant light scattering in the EBID dielectric nano-antenna will be useful for near-field measurement or for the implementation of three-dimensional nanophotonic devices.
ABSTRACT
We propose a gold modified bow-tie plasmonic nano-antenna, which can be suitably used in combination with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy. The plasmonic nano-antenna, supporting well-separated multiple resonances, not only concentrates the total internal reflection evanescent field at the deep subwavelength scale, but also enhances fluorescence emission by the Purcell effect. Finite-difference time-domain computations show that the enhancement of the excitation light strongly correlates with the far-field radiation pattern radiated from the antenna. Depending on the antenna geometry, the resonant modes are widely tuned and their wavelengths can be easily matched to the diverse emission or excitation wavelengths of fluorophores.
ABSTRACT
We demonstrate the efficient integration of an electrically driven nanowire (NW) light source with a double-strip plasmonic waveguide. A top-down-fabricated GaAs NW light-emitting diode (LED) is placed between two straight gold strip waveguides with the gap distance decreasing to 30 nm at the end of the waveguide and operated by current injection through the p-contact electrode acting as a plasmonic waveguide. Measurements of polarization-resolved images and spectra show that the light emission from the NW LED was coupled to a plasmonic waveguide mode, propagated through the waveguide, and was focused onto a subwavelength-sized spot of surface plasmon polaritons at the tapered end of the waveguide. Numerical simulation agreed well with these experimental results, confirming that a symmetric plasmonic waveguide mode was excited on the top surface of the waveguide. Our demonstration of a plasmonic waveguide coupled to an electrically driven NW LED represents important progress toward further miniaturization and practical implementation of ultracompact photonic integrated circuits.
