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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 60: Poster Session IV (Solid/liquid interfaces; Semiconductors; Oxides and insulators; Graphene; Plasmonics and nanooptics; Electronic Structure; Surface chemical reactions; Heterogeneous catalysis)

O 60.72: Poster

Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 17:30–21:00, P4

Surface plasmon polariton induced electronic transport through metallic nanostructures — •Daniel Benner, Matthias Bädicker, Johann Berres, Reimar Waitz, Johannes Boneberg, Paul Leiderer, and Elke Scheer — Universität Konstanz, Fachbereich Physik

We investigate the influence of pulsed and cw laser light onto the electronic transport through a metallic nanoconstriction. Light-matter interaction, in particular when the matter is in the nanometer scale, is an important and steadily growing field of research due to possible applications in opto-nanoelectronics. We use lithographically fabricated Mechanically Controllable Break-junctions (MCBJs) operated at ambient conditions for fabricating atomic-size contacts and atomically-sharp tips of gold. Detailed analysis of light-induced conductance changes has shown photo-assisted transport due to the excitation of high-energetic quasiparticles [1] and collective effects such as surface plasmon excitation. Also optical near fields due to antenna effects as well as thermal expansion contribute to the signal [2, 3, and 4]. We optimize the plasmon-induced effect for the development of optoelectronic devices by studying systematically the effects on different wavelengths, position of the laser spot, and geometries (e.g. design of the nanocontacts and polarization of the laser light). [1]J.K. Viljas et al., Phys. Rev. B 75, 075406 (2007) [2]D. Guhr et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 086801 (2007) [3]D. Guhr et al., J. of Microscopy 229, 407 (2008) [4]N. Ittah et al., Nano Lett. 9, 4 (2009)