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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 7: Plasmonics and Nanooptics I
O 7.7: Talk
Monday, March 11, 2013, 12:00–12:15, H31
Evolutionary optimization, realization and analysis of high-performance optical antennas — •Thorsten Feichtner1, Oleg Selig2, Markus Kiunke1, and Bert Hecht1 — 1Nano-Optics & Biophotonics Group, Experimentelle Physik 5, Physikalisches Institut, Wilhelm- Conrad-Röntgen-Center for Complex Material Systems, Universität Würzburg, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany — 2FOM Institute AMOLF, Biomolecular Photonics Group, Science Park 104, 1098 XG Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Optical antennas have a wide range of useful applications, e.g. increase of solar cell absorption, coupling of energy into plasmonic waveguides or enhancement of single emitter decay rates. Most nano antenna designs so far are based upon radio wave antenna technology which might not yield optimal performance. Structures with enhanced optical properties can be found by means of evolutionary algorithms [1]. We present an extension of this concept to geometries suitable for nano-fabrication, where we use structures with rounded edges and feature sizes of 22 nm that are described by a binary square matrix containing '0' and '1'. We show in experiments using two-photon-photoluminescence that the resulting evolutionary nano-antennas indeed show a two-fold increase compared to linear dipolar two-wire nano-antennas as suggested by simulations. We also outline a theory explaining this surprising finding based on the reciprocity theorem.
[1] Feichtner, T., Selig, O., Kiunke, M. & Hecht, B. Evolutionary Optimization of Optical Antennas. Physical Review Letters 109, 127701 (2012).