Generation and Detection of Surface Plasmons in a Plasmonic Waveguide by Electrically-Driven Optical Gap Nano-Antenna Transducers

We design and manufacture a new type of interfacing electro-plasmonics component by integrating electrically-contacted tunneling gap antenna on Dielectric Loaded Surface Plasmon Polariton Waveguide (DLSPPW). The active feed region of the optical antenna is acting as a bilateral transducer. When electrical charges are injected in the tunneling barrier photons are emitted from the feed area by a process identified as inelastic tunneling [1]. Part of the emitted energy is coupled to the surface plasmon modes sustained by the waveguide geometry. The electron-fed optical antenna is thus acting as localized electrical source of surface plasmons. The feed area of the antenna may also perform the reverse transduction whereby a propagating plasmon mode is converted into an electrical current by optical rectification [2]. In this regime of operation, the antenna acts as a detecting rectenna. The integration of electrically activated optical antennas into a plasmonic architecture mitigates the need for complex coupling scheme and proposes a solution for realizing integrated plasmon sources and detectors.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program FP7/2007-2013 Grant Agreement no 306772.

References:

[1] "Electrical excitation of surface plasmons", Palash Bharadwaj, Alexandre Bouhelier and Lukas Novotny, Physical Review Letter 2011.

[2] "Nonlinear Photon-Assisted Tunneling Transport in Optical Gap Antennas", Arnaud Stolz, Johann Berthelot, Marie-Maxime Mennemanteuil, Gérard Colas des Francs, Laurent Markey, Vincent Meunier, and Alexandre Bouhelier, Nano Letters 2014 14 (5), 2330-2338.

nicolas.cazier@u-bourgogne.fr