We show that despite of low loss, silver and gold are not suitable for a variety of nanoplasmonic applications in the infrared range, which require compact modes in single-interface plasmonic waveguides. At the same time, degenerate wide-band-gap semiconductors can serve as high-quality plasmonic materials at telecom wavelengths, combining fairly high compactness and relatively low loss. Their plasmonic properties in the near-infrared can be compared to those of gold in the visible range. The same materials can be used in a variety of non-plasmonic metamaterials applications, including transformation optics and invisibility cloaking.

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We demonstrate an average surface-enhanced Raman scattering enhancement on the order of 108 from benzenethiol molecules using self-assembled, macroscopic, and tunable gold nanosphere monolayers on non-templated substrates. The self-assembly of the nanosphere monolayers uses a simple and efficient technique that allows for the creation of a high-density, chemically functionalized gold nanosphere monolayers with enhancement factors comparable to those produced using top-down fabrication techniques. These films may provide an approach for the future development of portable chemical/biological sensors.

The hyperbolic and plasmonic properties of silicon nanowire/Ag arrays have been investigated. The aligned nanowire arrays were formed and coated by atomic layer deposition of Ag, which itself is a metamaterial due to its unique mosaic film structure. The theoretical and numerical studies suggest that the fabricated arrays have hyperbolic dispersion in the visible and IR ranges of the spectrum. The theoretical predictions have been indirectly confirmed by polarized reflection spectra, showing reduction of the reflection in p polarization in comparison to that in s polarization. Studies of dye emission on top of Si/Ag nanowire arrays show strong emission quenching and shortening of dye emission kinetics. This behavior is also consistent with the predictions for hyperbolic media. The measured SERS signals were enhanced by almost an order of magnitude for closely packed and aligned nanowires, compared to random nanowire composites. These results agree with electric field simulations of these array structures.

We have studied angular distribution of emission of dye molecules deposited on lamellar metal/dielectric and Si/Ag nanowire based metamaterials with hyperbolic dispersion. In agreement with the theoretical prediction, the emission pattern of dye on top of lamellar metamaterial is similar to that on top of metal. At the same time, the effective medium model predicts the emission patterns of the nanowire array and the dye film deposited on glass to be nearly identical to each other. This is not the case of our experiment. We tentatively explain the nearly Lambertian (∝cosθ) angular distribution of emission of the nanowire based sample by a surface roughness.