Plasmon Resonance Coupling Research Articles

Enhanced external quantum efficiency in GaN-based vertical-type light-emitting diodes by localized surface plasmons.

Enhancement of the external quantum efficiency of a GaN-based vertical-type light emitting diode (VLED) through the coupling of localized surface plasmon (LSP) resonance with the wave-guided mode light is studied. To achieve this experimentally, Ag nanoparticles (NPs), as the LSP resonant source, are drop-casted on the most top layer of waveguide channel, which is composed of hydrothermally synthesized ZnO nanorods capped on the top of GaN-based VLED. Enhanced light-output power and external quantum efficiency are observed, and the amount of enhancement remains steady with the increase of the injected currents. To understand the observations theoretically, the absorption spectra and the electric field distributions of the VLED with and without Ag NPs decorated on ZnO NRs are determined using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The results prove that the observation of enhancement of the external quantum efficiency can be attributed to the creation of an extra escape channel for trapped light due to the coupling of the LSP with wave-guided mode light, by which the energy of wave-guided mode light can be transferred to the efficient light scattering center of the LSP.

Impact of the Nanoscale Gap Morphology on the Plasmon Coupling in Asymmetric Nanoparticle Dimer Antennas.

Coupling of plasmon resonances in metallic gap antennas is of interest for a wide range of applications due to the highly localized strong electric fields supported by these structures, and their high sensitivity to alterations of their structure, geometry, and environment. Morphological alterations of asymmetric nanoparticle dimer antennas with (sub)-nanometer size gaps are assigned to changes of their optical response in correlative dark-field spectroscopy and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) investigations. This multimodal approach to investigate individual dimer structures clearly demonstrates that the coupling of the plasmon modes, in addition to well-known parameters such as the particle geometry and the gap size, is also affected by the relative alignment of both nanoparticles. The investigations corroborate that the alignment of the gap forming facets, and with that the gap area, is crucial for their scattering properties. The impact of a flat versus a rounded gap structure on the optical properties of equivalent dimers becomes stronger with decreasing gap size. These results hint at a higher confinement of the electric field in the gap and possibly a different onset of quantum transport effects for flat and rounded gap antennas in corresponding structures for very narrow gaps.

Dynamic coupling of plasmonic resonators.

We clarify the nature of dynamic coupling in plasmonic resonators and determine the dynamic coupling coefficient using a simple analytic model. We show that plasmonic resonators, such as subwavelength holes in a metal film which can be treated as bound charge oscillators, couple to each other through the retarded interaction of oscillating screened charges. Our dynamic coupling model offers, for the first time, a quantitative analytic description of the fundamental symmetric and anti-symmetric modes of coupled resonators which agrees with experimental results. Our model also reveals that plasmonic electromagnetically induced transparency arises in any coupled resonators of slightly unequal lengths, as confirmed by a rigorous numerical calculation and experiments.

Irradiation Wavelength-Dependent Photocurrent Sensing Characteristics of AuNPs/P3HT Composites on Volatile Vapor

Gas sensing characteristics of Au nanoparticles (AuNPs)/3-hexylthiophene-2, 5-diyl (P3HT) composite based on photocurrent detection under different irradiation wavelengths were investigated. AuNPs with different structures were prepared either by the vacuum sputtering/annealing method or by the wet chemical synthesis based on seed growth. AuNPs/P3HT composites were prepared by the dip coating method. The optical features of P3HT and Au nanostructure/P3HT composite were investigated. The optical absorption increase of AuNPs film was observed after P3HT coating, which was attributed to the interaction between the P3HT and the Au nano-islands. New shoulder peaks and the phenomenon of one spectral peak splitting into two were observed in the absorption spectra of the composite film, which confirmed the interaction between the AuNPs and the P3HT further. The photoconductivity characteristics of the P3HT and AuNPs with spectral peak position at 580-nm (AuNPs580)/P3HT composite films were investigated utilizing LED light source with different dominate wavelengths. The wavelength-dependent photocurrent change ratio I/I0 of both the P3HT and the AuNPs580/P3HT composite films was observed. The maximum I/I0 of the P3HT and AuNPs580 composite films emerged under LED irradiation with a dominate wavelength 590 nm, which was mainly ascribed to the antenna effect from the Au nano-islands, the carrier injection from nanostucture to P3HT, localized surface plasmon resonance coupling among Au nanostructures, and plasmon coupling between the Au nano-islands and the P3HT molecules. The response of Au nano-island/P3HT composite to ethanol vapor showed that the response and recovery time was shorter than 2 s. Furthermore, gas sensing characteristics were verified to be irradiation wavelength dependent. Irradiation light source with a dominate wavelength 590 nm produced the largest I/I0 1.07.

Orientational Control of Polymer Grafted Nanorods

Controllable end-to-end alignment of nanorods in polymer films would enable new applications, especially for metallic nanorods, where coupling of surface plasmon resonances can lead to enhanced electric fields (hot spots) between nanorod ends. To achieve end-to-end alignment, we investigate the dispersion and aggregation behavior of polymer brush-coated nanorods in a chemically identical homopolymer matrix using self-consistent field theory (SCFT). We find good agreement with previous DFT calculations and experiments for side-by-side alignment. However, we also find that thermodynamic aggregation of uniformly grafted nanorods in a polymer matrix will preferentially occur side-by-side rather than end-to-end. To achieve preferential end-to-end linking, we propose using different grafting molecular weights (relative to the length of the matrix chains) on the sides and the ends of the nanorods. We demonstrate this idea with an example system in which the side brush length is chosen so that the side-by-side in...

Simultaneous coupling of surface plasmon resonance and photonic bandgap to InGaAs quantum well emission

A photonic bandgap structure was created on the 100 nm thick GaAs barrier layer with Au nanodisks deposited inside the holes. To mitigate the nonradiative surface recombination of GaAs, the Au nanodisks were formed on top of a 15 nm SiO2 deposited in the holes. A maximum 7.6-fold increase in photoluminescence intensity was obtained at the etch depth of 80 nm. In this configuration, the Au nanodisk is separated from the quantum well by 20 nm of GaAs and 15 nm of SiO2. The experimental result was verified by the simulation based on this structure. There was a good agreement between experiments with simulation results.

SCATTERING OF LIGHT BY THE METAL-COATED DIELECTRIC NANOCYLINDERS WITH ANGULAR PERIODICITY

Scattering of light by metal-coated dielectric nanocylinders periodically distributed along a cylindrical surface is investigated both theoretically and numerically. The structure is under the authors' interest because of its practical application in design and fabrication of plasmonic devices such as plasmonic ring resonators, Plasmonic Crystals and THz waveguides. The method is based on the T-matrix approach and the field expansion into the cylindrical Floquet modes. The method is rigorous, straightforward and can be easily applied to various cylindrical configurations with different types and locations of the excitation sources. Scattering cross section and absorption cross section of three and four silver (Ag) coated-dielectric nanocylinders periodically situated along a cylindrical surface are studied. Near field distributions are investigated at particular wavelengths corresponding to the resonance wavelengths in the spectral responses. Special attention is paid to the unique and interesting phenomena characterizing the cylindrical structure composed of the metal-coated nanocylinders such as: a ) localization of the field at the outer and inner interfaces of the metal-coated nanocylinders; b) excitement of the field in the gap region between the nanocylinders through the coupled plasmon resonance and c) strong confinement of the field inside the cylindrical structure. Detailed investigations have shown that unique phenomena characterizing the cylindrical configurations of the nanocylinders can be realized using a relatively simple structure composed of three nanocylinders and there is no need to further increase a number of the scatterers (nanocylinders).

基于磁表面等离子体共振耦合的电磁波单向吸收器

基于磁表面等离子体共振耦合的电磁波单向吸收器

Surface plasmon resonance coupling effect of micro-patterned gold film

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering has a high sensitivity in the detections of complex biological systems, and it has a lot of potential applications in food inspection, biological imaging and biosensors in biochemistry, etc. Here, we investigate the surface Raman enhancements on gold films of different morphologies and further simulate the enhancements by using the finite difference time domain. To prepare the substrates with different morphologies, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is spin coated 2000 rpm in one minute on a silicon wafer, followed by annealing at 180℃ for 5 min. Then, PMMA is etched by a 20 kV electron beam lithography. With the PMMA used as a soft imprint template, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is dropped on the template then removed gently from the template after drying at 60℃ for 4 h. Finally, a gold thin film is prepared on the PDMS by magnetron sputtering with a current of 10 mA for 15 min. We design two kinds of morphologies:a four-way grid and a square morphology. The dimension of the four-way grids is 40 m and the grid width is 4 upm. The dimension of the square is also 4 upm. The cystine and melamine solutions with concentrations of 50, 100, 200 and 400 ppm are deposited on the surfaces of the gold thin film, respectively. The Raman spectra of cystine and melamine solutions are measured on the substrates with four-way grids and dot arrays. The Raman spectra of cystine on two kinds of substrates show no obvious difference. Due to the relatively small enhancement of melamine, the Raman peaks of melamine solutions of concentrations 50 and 100 ppm on the substrate of square morphologies are not easy to detect. On the contrary, all of the Raman spectra of melamine on the substrate of four-way grid morphologies are clear. The result indicates that the substrate with four-way grids has better sensitivity and enhancement performance. To verify the influence of the morphologies of the substrates on surface Raman enhancement and understand the mechanism of the enhancement, we simulate the scattering spectra and field distributions of different morphologies on gold thin films by using the finite difference time domain method. It is indicated that more complex the structure, the more obvious the enhanced Raman spectra will be. The calculations show that the enhancements of four-way grid morphologies are better than those of square morphologies. The predicted results of the surface enhanced Raman scattering are consistent with the measurements. These results will provide guidance and theoretical basis for further applications of surface enhanced.

The effect of plasmon resonance coupling in P3HT-coated silver nanodisk monolayers on their optical sensitivity

The correlation of the Langmuir Blodgett deposition phase with the reversible LSPR modulation of P3HT-coated silver nanodisk monolayers.

Plasmonic Fano resonances in compositional heterogenous Al- Au nanorod dimers

We have investigated theoretically the plasmon resonance coupling in compositional heterogenous Al-Au nanorod dimers organized in a close proximity by end-to-end. It has been proved that the destructive interference between the bright dipole mode from Al nanorod and the dark quadrupole mode from Au nanorod nearby results in the appearance of apparent Fano resonance in the extinction spectra. The Fano resonance response on the structural dimension modifications in the proposed nanorod dimers have been estimated and determined. The Al-Au heterogeneous nanorod dimer shows a high sensitivity to the surrounding environment with a local surface plasmon resonance figure of merit of 7.6, which enables its promising applications in plasmonic sensing and detection.

Strong coupling of hybrid and plasmonic resonances in liquid core plasmonic micro-bubble cavities.

A thin-wall plasmonic micro-bubble resonator, which is a high-Q optofluidic silica bubble cavity with a thin Ag film on the inside wall of the bubble, is proposed and fabricated to manipulate coupling among various types of resonant modes by changing its wall thickness and refractive index of the liquid in the core. Coupling of high-Q whispering gallery mode/plasmonic resonant mode forms hybrid mode; the hybrid mode can again strongly couple with another interior plasmonic resonant mode in the bubble cavity to achieve tunable high-Q plasmonic resonance that can be feasibly accessed by standard tapered fiber coupling. Therefore, the novel cavity structure provides a unique, yet general, platform to study plasmonic/photonic, hybrid/plasmonic, and plasmonic/plasmonic coupling.

Light emission enhancement based on surface plasmon resonance in zinc oxide/silver film on digital video disk template

ABSTRACTThe photoluminescence signals of zinc oxide/silver films based on digital video disk template were carried out compared with that of the planar mode. The spectra that on silicon showed a strong bandgap emission around 378 nm and a defect related emission band centered at ∼470 nm. After adding digital video disk template, it resulted in an increased signal of both the ultraviolet and the visible region, but the ultraviolet emission enhancement was notable. That the enhancement of band edge emission resulted from surface plasmon resonance coupling between silver and zinc oxide was discussed in detail.

Functional Materials Design through Hydrogel Encapsulation of Inorganic Nanoparticles: Recent Developments and Challenges

The encapsulation of inorganic nanoparticles by hydrogel shells offers a promising pathway toward the design of functional building blocks for manifold applications. Hydrogel shells can be grown in a broad range of thicknesses, from a few tens to several hundreds of nanometer, allowing for encapsulation of inorganic particles with different composition, size, and shape. This gives access to a diverse toolbox of colloidal building blocks, which combine properties of the individual components in a multifunctional fashion. Hydrogel shells provide the nano­particle cores with transparent, soft, and responsive coatings which improve the colloidal stability and allow interparticle distance control in colloidal assembly. The variation of the shell dimensions gives access to controlling the fill factor and ultimately distance‐dependent effects such as plasmon resonance coupling. This article summarizes the latest efforts in the preparation of core–shell colloids with different inorganic cores and hydrogel shells of various morphologies as well as the assembly of these building blocks into functional superstructures. It is demonstrated how the level of complexity can be increased from 1D to 3D by chemical treatment of core–shell particles, i.e., core growth or core removal, and template‐free as well as template‐assisted assembly leading to isotropic and anisotropic arrangements of particles. image

Fabrication and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy of single Au@SiO2 dimers linked by benzenedithiol

Metal nanoparticle dimers with controllable gap distance have attracted considerable attention because of their promising application in plasmonics. Generally, gaps with nanometer or subnanometer dimensions generate localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) coupling effect, thus contributing to a strong electromagnetic field for improving surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) effect. Here, we developed a facile approach to fabricate Au@SiO2 dimers through the steric hindrance effect, in which the SiO2 shell functioned as a block and a rigid dithiol molecule was employed as linker. The thickness of the SiO2 shell played a critical role in improving the yield of dimers. The dimerization efficiency increased significantly as the shell thickness decreased to ~1 nm. When 1,4‐benzenedithiol was used as linker molecule, the yield of dimers was ~30%. Few dimers were obtained when mecaptobenzonic acid was used as linker. A thicker shell is associated with a low yield of dimer, whereas a thinner shell resulted in the formation of multimers and linear structures. The low number of linker molecules on the exposed area of monodisperse single nanoparticles and the lack of LSPR coupling effect (‘hot spots’) resulted in the disappearance of SERS signals of the linkers. The estimated SERS enhancement factor was about eight fold because of the strong coupling effect in the gap of the dimer with the distance of the dithiol molecular length. From the above results, SERS combined with SEM could be developed into powerful tools for monitoring the formation of dimers and positioning of single dimers. It may aid the control of assembly of Au nanoparticles and in probing key issues about SERS enhancements. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Enhanced Optical Transmission and Sensing of a Thin Metal Film Perforated with a Compound Subwavelength Circular Hole Array**supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11464019, 11264017, 11004088), Young Scientist Development Program of China (No. 20142BCB23008) and the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province, China (Nos. 2014BAB212001, 20112BBE5033)

We propose and numerically investigate the optical transmission behaviors of a sub-wavelength metal film perforated with a two-dimensional square array of compound circular holes. Enhanced optical transmission is obtained by using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, which can be mainly attributed to the excitation and coupling of localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), and Fano Resonances. The redshift of the transmission peak can be achieved by enlarging the size and number of small holes, the environmental dielectric constant. These indicate that the proposed structure has potential applications in integrated optoelectronic devices such as plasmonic filters and sensors.

Encapsulated Silver Nanoparticles Can Be Directly Converted to Silver Nanoshell in the Gas Phase.

We report, for the first time, that an encapsulated silver nanoparticle can be directly converted to a silver nanoshell through a nanoscale localized oxidation and reduction process in the gas phase. Silver can be etched when exposed to a mixture of NH3/O2 gases through a mechanism analogous to the formation of aqueous Tollens' reagent, in which a soluble silver-ammonia complex was formed. Starting with Ag@resorcinol-formaldehyde (RF) resin core-shell nanoparticles, we demonstrate that RF-core@Ag-shell nanoparticles can be prepared successfully when the etching rate and RF thickness were well controlled. Due to the strong surface plasmon resonance (SPR) coupling effect among neighboring silver nanoparticles, the RF@Ag nanoparticle showed great SPR and SERS performance. This process provides a general route to the conversion of Ag-core to Ag-shell nanostructures and might be extended to other systems.

Control of the Metal-Insulator Transition at Complex Oxide Heterointerfaces through Visible Light.

The coupling of the localized surface plasmon resonance of Au nanoparticles is utilized to deliver a visible-light stimulus to control conduction at the LaAlO3 /SrTiO3 interface. A giant photoresponse and the controllable metal-insulator transition are characterized at this heterointerface. This study paves a new route to optical control of the functionality at the heterointerfaces.

Tunable bandwidth of pass-band metamaterial filter based on coupling of localized surface plasmon resonance

A broad pass-band compound structure metamaterial is designed which consists of periodic two metallic particles and hole arrays. The operating bandwidth of the designed structure reaches to Δf≈33.8THz. Physical mechanisms are analyzed and validated based on calculated electric field distribution that the interaction and coupled of LSP modes between two metallic particles leads to the bandwidth increased and resonance frequency blue-shifted, while the interaction and coupled between metallic particle and metallic arrays results in the reduced of the pass-band. The pass-band can be expanded through reducing the permittivity of dielectric layer or reducing the width of the metallic particle (a). The effect of the angles of incidence on the pass-band is also analyzed for normal, 15°, 30° and 45°.

High field plasmonics and laser-plasma acceleration in solid targets

The interaction of low intensity laser pulses with metal nano-structures is at the basis of plasmonics and the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SP) is one of its building blocks. Some of the configurations adopted in classical plasmonics can be explored considering high intensity lasers interacting with properly structured targets. SP excitation at intensities such that the electrons quiver at relativistic velocities, poses new questions and might open new frontiers for manipulation and amplification of high power laser pulses. Here we discuss two configurations which show evidence of the resonant coupling between relativistically intense laser pulses with the SPs on plasma targets with surface modulations. Evidences of SP excitation were observed in a recent experiment when a high contrast (1012), high intensity laser pulse ( W cm−2) was focussed on a grating target (engraved surface at sub-micron scale); a strong emission of multi-MeV electron bunches accelerated by SPs was observed only in conditions for the resonant SP excitation. Theoretical and numerical analysis of the Light-Sail (LS) Radiation Pressure Acceleration (RPA) regime show how the plasmonic resonant coupling of the laser light with the target rippling, affects the growth of Rayleigh Taylor Instability (RTI) driven by the radiation pressure.