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Localized Light-Matter Interactions with Optical Antennas

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Nano-Structures for Optics and Photonics

Abstract

Standard far-field optical elements, such as lenses and mirrors, are only capable of localizing radiation to about half-a-wavelength—the Abbe criterion. Optical antennas facilitate the further localization of radiation into arbitrarily small spatial volumes. Combining the optical antenna with traditional optical microscopy, a technique termed near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM), has enabled the study of biological and solid-state samples at high spatial resolution. Since the development of NSOM in the 1980s, the biggest challenge to researchers has been the design and fabrication of optical antennas functioning as optical near-field probes. We have recently made much progress in the development of widely applicable, and reproducible, optical antennas that provide a high degree of spatial localization. Beyond NSOM, we also explore the electrical excitation, as opposed to photo excitation, of optical antennas with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). We demonstrate a two-step plasmon-mediated energy conversion from a tunneling current to propagating photons in a smooth gold film as well an extended gold nanowire. We prove that highly localized gap plasmons are first excited in the tunnel gap, which can then couple to propagating plasmons. We elaborate on the role of gap plasmons in explaining the huge variations seen in photon emission yields in the field of STM light emission.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant 200021_149433).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Zachary J. Lapin, Palash Bharadwaj, Shawn Divitt & Lukas Novotny

Authors
  1. Zachary J. Lapin
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  2. Palash Bharadwaj
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  3. Shawn Divitt
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  4. Lukas Novotny
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Correspondence to Zachary J. Lapin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA

    Baldassare Di Bartolo

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Wheaton College, Norton, Massachusetts, USA

    John Collins

  3. Department of Physics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, USA

    Luciano Silvestri

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Lapin, Z.J., Bharadwaj, P., Divitt, S., Novotny, L. (2015). Localized Light-Matter Interactions with Optical Antennas. In: Di Bartolo, B., Collins, J., Silvestri, L. (eds) Nano-Structures for Optics and Photonics. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9133-5_3

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