Active switching of surface plasmon polariton waves in Ga-Al and Ga-Ag layered nanostructures

Krasavin, A.V., MacDonald, K.F. and Zheludev, N.I. (2005) Active switching of surface plasmon polariton waves in Ga-Al and Ga-Ag layered nanostructures. Surface Plasmon Photonics 2, Graz, Austria. 20 - 25 May 2005.

Abstract

We recently introduced and demonstrated a new concept for active switching of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waves, which was based on the control of waveguide properties via reversible nanoscale structural transformations at the metal-dielectric interface [APL 84, 1416 (2004); 85, 3369 (2004)]. Our approach takes advantage of the most characteristic features of SPP waves, namely that their propagation depends strongly on the properties of a nanoscale layer of metal at the interface where SPP waves are localized. It has potential for application in Opto-SPP, Electro-SPP and SPP-SPP modulators and in SPP detectors.
So far, gallium films on silica have been the main focus of experimental studies, however manufacturing high-quality, uniform, switchable gallium films is difficult and presents a significant obstacle to their practical application. Here we report that gallium-aluminium (Ga-Al) and gallium-silver (Ga-Ag) films, manufactured by binary diffusion, simultaneously provide exceptionally good 'mirror-like' interface quality in large mono-domain areas and are switchable by temperature and optical excitation. We provide data on the optical properties of such films and on nanosecond optical switching of the dielectric properties of these structures in various configurations important for active plasmonics.

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Contributors

Author: K.F. MacDonald

Author: N.I. Zheludev

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