Optical field characteristics of nanofocusing by conical metal-coated dielectric probe

Abstract

Nanofocusing of surface plasmon polariton by a conical metal-coated dielectric probe was investigated numerically using the three dimensional volume integral equation. The basic characteristics of the nanofocused optical fields generated by this probe were investigated in detail. The intensity distribution near the probe tip was found to be very sensitive to the shape of the probe tip. Enhanced local fields interfere near the tip for certain probe tip shapes.

Improving near-field throughput in a hollow metallic tapered waveguide via wavefront modulation

“…Although the propagation of electromagnetic field in a three-dimensional model will be more complicated than that in a 2D one [28], our results would have a certain guiding significance for a real aperture NSOM probe with circular or square aperture.…”

Analysis of surface plasmon polariton nanofocusing by asymmetric metal-coated dielectric probe: Partial metal-coating

“…The average thickness of the metal-coating is given by k d 0.27 0 = (d¼ 27.4 nm). It is known that optical intensity near the tip is very sensitive to the shape of the tip [12,15]. So, we consider two kinds of shapes of the tip whose arrangement of cubes in the top 14 and 13 layers parallel to the x-y plane of the probe are shown in Fig.…”

“…The metalcoated dielectric probe can create the significantly localized and enhanced near-fields in the nanosized region near the tip. This focusing technique is often called SPP nanofocusing or superfocusing so far [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and it has been applied to the optical probe of scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM). The metalcoated dielectric probe of conical shape is one of fundamental devices in nanophotonics utilizing SPPs [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16].…”

“…In order to perform the SPP nanofocusing of LP waves, a variety of structures have been studied and investigated [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The authors have also proposed the idea using metal-coated dielectric probe of tilted conical shape and have shown that this probe is valid for both incident LP and RP waves [14].…”

Superfocusing of surface plasmon polaritons by metal-coated dielectric probe of tilted conical shape

“…The strongly nanolocalized optical fields induce many enhanced nonlinear-optical phenomena and have various prospective applications. Metal-coated dielectric conical probe supporting SPPs can perform the above-mentioned function by creating enhanced local fields at the tip [2,3]. This focusing technique is often called SPP superfocusing or nanofocusing so far [1,[3][4][5][6][7][8][9].…”