Efficient Surface Plasmon Polariton Excitation and Control over Outcoupling Mechanisms in Metal–Insulator–Metal Tunneling Junctions

Abstract

Figure 5. Schematics of indicating dipole positions for coupling simulations of the MIM-SPP to the SPP Au-glass via a) pathway 2 and b) pathways 2 and 3. The simulated corresponding coupling efficiencies for the four different MIM-TJs with a solid line indicating rough MIM-TJs with σ m = 5 nm and a dashed line indicating smooth MIM-TJs with σ m = 0 nm are shown for c) pathway 2 and d) pathways 2 and 3.

Directional launching of surface plasmon polaritons by electrically driven aperiodic groove array reflectors

“…The real and back focal plane (BFP) images were recorded while applying a bias to the junctions using an inverted optical microscope following previously reported methods [20]. Figure 4d-f shows the real plane images of the MIM-TJ − , MIM-TJ + , and the symmetrical junction, respectively, at V = −1.7 V. These images show that photon emission primarily originates from the Al-Au edges of the junction, along with some light scattering from the junction area due to defects induced by the surface roughness of the electrode [41]. Owing to the randomness of the surface roughness and the high confinement of the MIM SPPs, the photons from the junction area are scattered into the far-field over all angles, forming the background signal of the BFP images [50].…”

“…We extracted the fringes from the two sides of the BFP images and obtained an extinction ratio of R e = 12.53 using Equation (1) (Section S7), which is comparable to the overall average value of 18.42 calculated by FDTD simulations. Note that the scattered photons from the junction edges and the junction area diffuse into the background in the BFP images [41,50].…”

“…We note that MIM-TJs are commercially available (e.g., magnetic tunnel junctions, Josephson junctions, tunnel diodes, millimeter wave detectors, or rectennas) [32][33][34][35][36] and can be scaled to subhundred nanometers [37,38]. The challenge is to outcouple the highly confined MIM SPP mode to a single interface SPP mode that propagates along a dielectric-metal interface of a plasmonic waveguide because the momentum of the MIM SPP is one order of magnitude larger than that of the single interface SPPs [39][40][41].…”

Plasmonic Gold Nanohole Arrays for Surface-Enhanced Sum Frequency Generation Detection

“…Compared with LSPR systems, most surface plasmon polariton (SPP) nanostructures are more specific in structure, with a relatively larger uniform area [ 17 , 18 ]. SPPs are transverse magnetic polarized optical surface electromagnetic waves that can propagate tens to hundreds of micrometers along the interface between metal and dielectric materials [ 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. The prism-coupled metal films in Kretschmann configuration and 2D plasmonic periodic arrays have been widely employed in the investigation of SPPs [ 18 , 23 , 24 ].…”

Plasmonic Gold Nanohole Arrays for Surface-Enhanced Sum Frequency Generation Detection

“…Compared to LSPR systems, most of the surface plasmon polariton (SPP) nanostructures are more specific in structure with relatively larger uniform area [17,18]. SPP are transverse magnetic polarized optical surface electromagnetic waves, which can propagate tens to hundreds of micrometers along the interface between metal and dielectric materials [19][20][21][22]. The prism-coupled metal films in Kretschmann configuration and 2D plasmonic periodic arrays have been widely employed in the investigation of SPP [18,23,24].…”