Low-loss plasmonics based on alkali metals: from fundamentals to applications: tutorial

The field of plasmonics has the potential to enable unique applications in the mid-infrared (IR) wavelength range. However, as is the case regardless of wavelength, the choice of plasmonic material has significant implications for the ultimate utility of any plasmonic device or structure. In this manuscript, we review the wide range of available plasmonic and phononic materials for mid-IR wavelengths, looking in particular at transition metal nitrides, transparent conducting oxides, silicides, doped semiconductors, and even newer plasmonic materials such as graphene. We also include in our survey materials with strong mid-IR phonon resonances, such as GaN, GaP, SiC, and the perovskite SrTiO3, all of which can support plasmon-like modes over limited wavelength ranges. We will discuss the suitability of each of these plasmonic and phononic materials, as well as the more traditional noble metals for a range of structures and applications and will discuss the potential and limitations of alternative plasmonic materials at these IR wavelengths.

Plasmonics deals with the study of the interaction of nanometre-scale materials with light, has excellent potential in unique applications such as communication, subwavelength guiding, optical cloaking, etc. Metals such as gold and silver have been conventionally used as plasmonic materials because of the high carrier concentration. Their associated plasma frequency lies in the ultraviolet range. The significant absorption loss at lower frequencies across near-infrared and fixed carrier density of electron of metals forced researchers for alternative materials. The material system, such as conducting metal oxides with low loss and tunable optical properties, is considered as a potential candidate for plasmonic applications in the near-infrared. The response of electrons with photons can be understood on the basis of the dielectric permittivity of materials. The real part of this complex dielectric constant defines the capability of material gets polarized, while the imaginary part indicates the material loss while polarizing. In this study, indium doped zinc oxide thin films were deposited on glass substrate by spin coating (IZO1) and spray coating (IZO2) for low-loss plasmonic applications in near IR. Structural conformation of the films was carried out by XRD. Films deposited at the optimized conditions exhibited a carrier concentration of ∼1020/cm3. The zero cross over wavelength of real permittivity was extracted using the dielectric permittivity. The negative real permittivity obtained beyond 2008 nm for IZO1 thin film and 2126nm for IZO2 film, which confirmed the plasmonic behaviour of these in the NIR wavelength. The losses calculated for the film are smaller than that of conventional films in the near IR. These films are promising low loss alternative materials to conventional metals for the plasmonic device applications in near IR.

Plasmonic materials that exhibit excellent plasmonic behavior at high temperatures would greatly expand existing applications, but the search for such materials is ongoing. Transition metal nitrides with good conductivity and high-temperature stability are promising candidates for temperature-dependent plasmonic applications. Here, we systematically investigate the temperature-dependent surface plasmon and hot carrier properties of TiN and VN. Significantly, high temperatures significantly affect the phonon-assisted intraband transition processes. Meanwhile, TiN and VN exhibit efficient optical absorption and low surface plasmon loss at different temperatures, which are comparable to or even higher than Ag. In particular, the surface plasmon response of TiN extends to visible light, making it an excellent candidate for low-loss and broadband plasmonic applications at high temperatures. In contrast, VN exhibits a much narrower plasmonic window, which is mainly suitable for infrared low-loss plasmonic devices. For hot carriers, the energy and probability distributions of hot holes in TiN and hot electrons in VN exhibit robustness to temperature. Meanwhile, transport properties indicate that the temperature effect on hot holes is significantly higher than that on hot electrons in TiN and VN. Therefore, we expect that the reported results will provide theoretical guidance for the design of next-generation high-temperature plasmonic devices.

Enhanced plasmonic field and focusing for ring-shaped nanostructures via radial vector beam

Nanoparticle plasmonics: going practical with transition metal nitrides

Photonics offers a solution to data communication between logic devices in computing systems; however, the integration of photonic components into electronic chips is rather limited due to their size incompatibility. Dimensions of photonic components are therefore being forced to be scaled down dramatically to achieve a much higher system performance. To integrate these nano-photonic components, surface plasmon-polaritons and/or energy transfer mechanisms are used to form plasmonic chips. In this paper, the operating principle of plasmonic waveguide devices is reviewed within the mid-infrared spectral region at the 2 μm to 5 μm range, including lossless signal propagation by introducing gain. Experimental results demonstrate that these plasmonic devices, of sizes approximately half of the operating free-space wavelengths, require less gain to achieve lossless propagation. Through optimization of device performance by means of methods such as the use of new plasmonic waveguide materials that exhibit a much lower minimal loss value, these plasmonic devices can significantly impact electronic systems used in data communications, signal processing, and sensors industries.

Plasmonics enables the manipulation of light beyond the optical diffraction limit1-4 and may therefore confer advantages in applications such as photonic devices5-7, optical cloaking8,9, biochemical sensing10,11 and super-resolution imaging12,13. However, the essential field-confinement capability of plasmonic devices is always accompanied by a parasitic Ohmic loss, which severely reduces their performance. Therefore, plasmonic materials (those with collective oscillations of electrons) with a lower loss than noble metals have long been sought14-16. Here we present stable sodium-based plasmonic devices with state-of-the-art performance at near-infrared wavelengths. We fabricated high-quality sodium films with electron relaxation times as long as 0.42 picoseconds using a thermo-assisted spin-coating process. A direct-waveguide experiment shows that the propagation length of surface plasmon polaritons supported at the sodium-quartz interface can reach 200 micrometres at near-infrared wavelengths. We further demonstrate a room-temperature sodium-based plasmonic nanolaser with a lasing threshold of 140 kilowatts per square centimetre, lower thanvalues previously reported for plasmonic nanolasers at near-infrared wavelengths. These sodium-based plasmonic devices show stable performance under ambient conditions over a period of several months after packaging with epoxy. These results indicate that the performance of plasmonic devices can be greatly improved beyond that of devices using noble metals, with implications for applications in plasmonics, nanophotonics and metamaterials.

While the field of plasmonics has grown significantly in recent years, the relatively high losses and limited material choices have remained a challenge for the development of many device concepts. The decay of plasmons into hot carrier excitations is one of the main loss mechanisms; however, this process offers an opportunity for the direct utilization of loss if excited carriers can be collected prior to thermalization. From a materials point-of-view, noble metals (especially gold and silver) are almost exclusively employed in these hot carrier plasmonic devices; nevertheless, many other materials may offer advantages for collecting these hot carriers. In this manuscript, we present results for 16 materials ranging from pure metals and alloys to nanowires and graphene and show their potential applicability for hot carrier excitation and extraction. By considering the expected hot carrier distributions based on the electron density of states for the materials, we predict the preferred hot carrier type for collection and their expected performance under different illumination conditions. By considering materials not traditionally used in plasmonics, we find many promising alternative materials for the emerging field of hot carrier plasmonics.

Extraction of Modeling Parameters for Low-loss Alternative Plasmonic Material

The field of metamaterials has opened landscapes of possibilities in basic science, and a paradigm shift in the way we think about and design emergent material properties. In many scenarios, metamaterial concepts have helped overcome long-held scientific challenges, such as the absence of optical magnetism and the limits imposed by diffraction in optical imaging. As the potential of metamaterials, as well as their limitations, become clearer, these advances in basic science have started to make an impact on several applications in different areas, with far-reaching implications for many scientific and engineering fields. At optical frequencies, the alliance of metamaterials with the fields of plasmonics and nanophotonics can further advance the possibility of controlling light propagation, radiation, localization and scattering in unprecedented ways. In this review article, we discuss the recent progress in the field of metamaterials, with particular focus on how fundamental advances in this field are enabling a new generation of metamaterial, plasmonic and nanophotonic devices. Relevant examples include optical nanocircuits and nanoantennas, invisibility cloaks, superscatterers and superabsorbers, metasurfaces for wavefront shaping and wave-based analog computing, as well as active, nonreciprocal and topological devices. Throughout the paper, we highlight the fundamental limitations and practical challenges associated with the realization of advanced functionalities, and we suggest potential directions to go beyond these limits. Over the next few years, as new scientific breakthroughs are translated into technological advances, the fields of metamaterials, plasmonics and nanophotonics are expected to have a broad impact on a variety of applications in areas of scientific, industrial and societal significance.

As is well known, plasmonics bridges the gap between nanoscale electronics and dielectric photonics, and is expected to be applied to light generation, photonic integration and chips, optical sensing and nanofabrication technology. So far, most of plasmonic microstructures and nanostructures cannot dynamically tune the properties once their structures are fabricated. Therefore, developing active plasmonic materials and devices is especially desired and necessary. Recently, dynamically tunable plasmonic materials and devices have been intensively investigated with the aim of practical applications. Here in this paper, we review recent research advances in active plasmonic materials and devices. Firstly we summarize three approaches to dynamically tuning plasmonic materials and devices. The first approach is to dynamically change the effective permittivity of metallic microstructures and nanostructures. The second approach is to dynamically adjust the ambient environments of the materials and devices. The third approach is to real-time tune the coupling effects in the nanostructures. Then we take ordinary plasmonic materials, plasmonic metamaterials, and plasmonic metasurfaces for example to show how to make them dynamically tunable. With external fields (such as electrical field, light field, thermal field, and mechanical force field, etc.), various approaches have been demonstrated in dynamically tuning the physical properties of plasmonic systems in real time. We anticipate that this review will promote the further development of new-generation subwavelength materials and optoelectrionic devices with new principles and better performances.

Metals, which dominate the fields of plasmonics and metamaterials suffer from large ohmic losses. New plasmonic materials, such as doped oxides and nitrides, have smaller material loss, and using them in place of metals carries a promise of reduced-loss plasmonic and metamaterial structures, with sharper resonances and higher field concentration. This promise is put to a rigorous analytical test in this work and it is revealed that having low material loss is not sufficient to have a reduced modal loss in plasmonic structures, unless the plasma frequency is significantly higher than the operational frequency. Using examples of nanoparticle plasmons and gap plasmons one comes to the conclusion that even in the mid-infrared spectrum metals continue to hold advantage over the alternative media. The new materials may still find application niche where the high absorption loss is beneficial, e.g. in medicine and thermal photovoltaics.

In this chapter, we focus on discussing the dielectric materials with high refractive indices and low losses. Section 6.1 briefly introduces the research motivation and some key advantages of dielectric materials. Section 6.2 covers the fundamental electromagnetic properties of dielectric materials, elucidating the origin of low loss features and multipole Mie resonances. The commonly used fabrication techniques are also discussed. Sections 6.3 briefly reviews various applications of dielectric materials in manipulating electromagnetic waves, and explains how the unique physical properties of dielectric materials could benefit these applications. Finally, a short summary and future perspective are conceived in Section 6.4, including a brief comparison between dielectric and plasmonic metal materials.

A novel material platform based on metallic thin films with ultra-low losses in the visible and near-IR range is crucial for rapid development of a wide range of new generation plasmonic devices. For many years silver has been known as potentially the best plasmonic material with the naturally lowest ohmic losses at optical frequencies. However, the widespread implementation of the silver-based material platform for plasmonics and metamaterials is limited due to technological challenges in thin film synthesis and nanoscale features fabrication techniques. This review describes the main types of silver-based plasmonic devices from the thin films point of view required for their widespread practical application. Based on comparative analysis of more than 60-year-long history of previously reported data for the silver thin films, the authors formulate the qualitative and quantitative criteria of ideal silver film (which the authors name the silver dream plasmonic film) for plasmonic devices with ultra-low loss. This paper outlines on several well-known metrology issues in plasmonic metallic films characterization and summarize the set of methods for their properties careful and precise extraction. Finally, the detailed analysis of silver synthesis techniques and quantitative comparison of the achieved silver properties is carried out.

Alkali metals have low optical losses in the visible to near-infrared (NIR) compared with noble metals. However, their high reactivity prohibits the exploration of their optical properties. Recently sodium (Na) has been experimentally demonstrated as a low-loss plasmonic material. Here we report on a thermo-assisted nanoscale embossing (TANE) technique for fabricating plasmonic nanostructures from pure potassium (K) and NaK liquid alloys. We show high-quality-factor resonances from K as narrow as 15 nm in the NIR, which we attribute to the high material quality and low optical loss. We further demonstrate liquid Na-K plasmonics by exploiting the Na-K eutectic phase diagram. Our study expands the material library for alkali metal plasmonics and liquid plasmonics, potentially enabling a range of new material platforms for active metamaterials and photonic devices.