Plasmonics

In this paper, a tunable double-decker ultra-broadband THz absorber is proposed based on a phase change material, which is vanadium dioxide (VO2). The tailored tunable double-decker phase change material absorber (TDPA) can be regulated by the temperature. The absorption of such TDPA spans from 7.36 to 16.67 THz when the temperature is equal to 350 K for TE wave, which is over 90% and its relative bandwidth is 77.4% under the circumstances. But such a TDPA can be regarded as a perfect reflector when the temperature is 300 K. When the incident angle is oblique, the absorption also is investigated, which shows that the presented TDPA is incident-angle-independent, when the incident angle is less than 40°. The relationship between the absorption features and the structure parameters is also discussed. The distributions of current surface, the electric fields, and the power loss densities are given to expound the physical mechanism of such a TDPA. Besides, by setting different temperature, a reconfigurable device can be realized in the proposed TDPA.

A controllable nanosized light source based on nonlinear interaction of light and a semiconductor nanowire is proposed. Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waves with different frequencies propagate along the upper and lower surfaces of a truncated metallic film and are scattered at its end face. A nanowire, in that vicinity, is pumped by the scattered light, and new harmonics are generated via second-order nonlinear optical effects. Green's function surface integral equation method is exploited to numerically calculate the electric field, the magnetic field, and the power of the generated frequency components. Results show that the power of the generated harmonics depends on the position and radius of the nanowire, thickness of the metallic film, as well as the wavelength of the incident SPP waves. On the other hand, by controlling the phase difference between incident SPP waves having the same frequencies, it is possible to manipulate the electric field pattern and also to change the power of the generated harmonics.

We propose a novel design of plasmonic compact nanoantenna with an efficiently engineered spectral response for the directive emission or harvesting of light. The nanoantenna comprised of four gold nanodisks, arranged longitudinally, and appropriately spaced. Interestingly, by tuning of the inter-particle distances, it is found that the proposed nanoantenna shows either dual-band or broad-band unidirectional performances. These remarkable spectral effects are due to the tailored energies of the two hybridized out-of-phase LSPR modes and the intrinsic electromagnetic interactions. The theoretical predictions are obtained based on the modified coupled-dipole approximation method. In order to obtain more accurate theoretical results, the primary incident optical field seen by the smaller nanodisks are modified by taking into account the field-enhancement caused by the excited plasmons in the largest nanodisk when it is illuminated first. The theoretical results are confirmed by the electromagnetic simulations.

A plasmonic metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) waveguide structure is proposed by placing a slot cavity below or above a groove. The groove and the slot cavity can act as a reflector and a resonator, respectively. Due to the interactions between the broad dark mode and the narrow bright mode caused by the groove and the side-coupled slot cavity, single Fano resonance with sharp asymmetric spectral profile is achieved. Interestingly, dual Fano resonances can also be obtained by using two different slot cavities, which are simultaneously distributed on both sides of the groove. The line shape can be transformed by changing the length of the groove, while the wavelength of the resonance peak can be manipulated linearly with the length of the slot cavity. The proposed structure yields a highest sensitivity of ∼1131 nm/RIU and a figure of merit of ∼1.6 × 107, and thus, we believe that it can serve as an on-chip nanosensor.

Metallic nanoparticles display distinct localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) properties that depend on their size, shape, and composition and that can be monitored to characterize their growth. Utilizing LSPR properties, we report the first investigation of ambient temperature formation of trioctylamine (TOA)-stabilized spherical silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) of ∼3.0-nm diameter by mild reduction of AgClO4 with the weak reducing agent heptamethyltrisiloxane in organic solvent. The appropriate choice of experimental conditions caused slow reduction, which allowed the study of the nanoparticle growth process by time-resolved UV–visible spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The linear nanoparticle growth kinetics from 50 min to end of the reaction derived from LSPR changes, the absence of a bimodal size distribution during the initial stage of the reduction process from TEM analysis, and the single crystallinity of the resulting AgNPs suggested a diffusion-controlled Ostwald-ripening growth process. It was also found that in addition to its stabilizing ability, TOA acted as a catalyst and facilitated Ag+ reduction. Furthermore, a modest increase in reaction temperature caused a substantial enhancement in the AgNP formation rate, and low concentration of stabilizing ligand yielded an increase in size and dispersity.

Screening plays an important role in determining the energy levels and binding energies of excitons in two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. However, the photoelectric properties of 2D materials deposited upon metal films are often assumed to remain unaffected by the screening effect. Herein, we derive the reflectance contrast spectra of monolayer WS2 on different thicknesses of ultrathin gold films by using the transfer matrix method, and investigate the screening effect of ultrathin gold films on excitons in monolayer WS2. We show that the exciton binding energy of the ground state gradually decreases as the gold film thickness increases due to the enhanced screening effect. Nevertheless, it may be due to the impact of free-electron scattering on the permittivities of gold films: exciton resonance energies of the ground state and the first excited state gradually increase as the gold film thickness increases, which are different from previously reported variation trend of exciton energy levels with the thickness of screening media of 2D materials. As a consequence, the electronic bandgap of the exciton only presents a small variation range of less than 4 meV with thickening of the gold film from 0.0 to 40 nm. These findings shed light on understanding to what extent the screening effect of gold films affects the excitons in 2D materials.

In this study, we present a high-performance tunable plasmonic absorber based on metal-insulator-metal nanostructures. High absorption is supported over a wide range of wavelengths, which is retained well at a very wide range of incident angles too. The coupling process occurs with high absorption efficiency of ∼ 99% by tuning the thickness of the dielectric layer. In addition, a complex trapezoidal nanostructure based on simple metal-insulator-metal structures by stacking different widths of Cu strip-nanostructures in the vertical direction has been put forward to enhance light absorption based on selective absorption. A trapezoidal sample has been designed with a solar absorption as high as 95% at wavelengths ranging from 300 nm to 2000 nm for different operating temperatures. Furthermore, the optical absorber has a very simple geometric structure and is easy to integrate into complex photonic devices. Perfect absorption and easy fabrication of the metal-insulator-metal structure make it an attractive device in numerous photonic applications.

We report in this paper the near-field distribution in the case of gold triangle arrays by means of two-photon polymerization for a dipole and a quadrupole plasmon mode. In order to link the finite difference in the time domain (FDTD) simulations of the triangle array and the experimental results, extinction spectra for both cases in air and SU-8 environments are shown. In case of the 40-nm thick gold triangles with 85-nm side-length, we show that the calculated and experimentally obtained near-field for the excited dipole mode has the same distribution along the polarization of the exciting laser beam. In case of bigger triangles of 540-nm side-length a quadrupole mode is excited, which leads to a rotation of the near-field distribution by 90° referred to the polarization of the beam. This effect is also shown in the FDTD simulations.