What is it about?
A two-wire waveguide with an receiving and and emitting antenna are designed to work at optical frequencies. The well-known radio-frequency concepts of lumped circuits and impedance matching cannot be used easily due to novel physical effect connected to the emergence of plasmons at optical frequencies. By variation of the antenna dimensions in- and outcoupling of light to/from the waveguide are optimized and it can be shown, that the concept of impedance matching can be adjusted and thus applied to understand the results.
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Why is it important?
This is the first time, that impedance matching has been used to describe the coupling between an optical antenna and a plasmonic waveguide.
Perspectives
The concept of impedance breaks down, as the dimensions of the antennas shrink to the length scales of the penetration depth of the used electromagnetic frequency. Thus, for every single case and novel geometry the behavior of plasmonic elements for optical circuitry has to be calculated anew by means of simulations (as there are only a few geometries with analytical solutions). The optical circuit in this work is applicable for many further experiments. The results presented here make it easier to design the appropriate antennas for an efficient coupling between photons and plasmons.
Dr Thorsten Viktor Feichtner
Julius-Maximilians-Universitat Wurzburg
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Impedance Matching and Emission Properties of Nanoantennas in an Optical Nanocircuit, Nano Letters, May 2009, American Chemical Society (ACS),
DOI: 10.1021/nl803902t.
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