Directional Chiral Optical Emission by Electron-Beam-Excited Nano-Antenna

Abstract

Abstract Manipulating directional chiral optical emissions on a nanometer scale is significant for material science studies. The electron-beam-excited nanoantenna provides a favorable platform to tune optical emissions at the deep subwavelength scale. Here we present an L-shaped electron-beam-excited nanoantenna (LENA) with two identical orthogonal arms. By selecting different electron-beam impacting sites on the LENA, either the left-handed circularly polarized (LCP) or the right-handed circularly polarized (RCP) emission can be excited. The LCP and RCP emissions possess different emission directionality, and the emission wavelength depends on the arm length of the LENA. Further, we show a combined nanoantenna with two LENAs of different arm lengths. Induced by the electron beam, LCP and RCP lights emit simultaneously from the nanoantenna with different wavelengths to different directions. We suggest this approach is informative for investigating electron-photon interaction and electron-beam spectroscopy in nanophotonics.