Stuttgart 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 29: Photonik 2
Q 29.6: Vortrag
Dienstag, 13. März 2012, 15:15–15:30, V38.01
Long-range Surface Plasmon Polariton Wave Guides for near-infrared light — •Johannes Trapp1, Markus Weber1, and Harald Weinfurter1,2 — 1Department für Physik der LMU München, Schellingstr. 4/III, 80799 München — 2Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, 85748 Garching
Surface Plasmon Polaritons are collective excitations of free electrons in a metal. More precisely, they can be seen as charge density waves propagating along a metal-dielectric interface, with the ability to couple to an electromagnetic field outside the metal. This coupling allows for various applications, like sub-wavelength wave guiding or efficient collection of single photon emission. However, Surface Plasmon Polaritons suffer from short propagations lengths (tens of µ m). In order to reduce damping, thin metal strips of few nm thickness are embedded in a dielectric and can then be used to carry the Surface Plasmon Polariton. Now the electromagnetic field is able to spread into the low-loss dielectric on both sides of the metal, thus drastically reducing attenuation. Propagation lengths achieved this way are found to be in the cm-range for optical communication wavelengths [1]. Here we present the excitation and observation of Long-range Surface Plasmon Polaritons in the near-infrared. Propagation distances over 3 mm have been achieved at a free-space wavelength of 785 nm in a polymer-gold-polymer type wave guide.
[1] P. Berini, Phys. Rev. B, 61, 10484 (2000)