title: Surface plasmon polariton waveguiding in random surface nanostructures.
abstract: In this study, guiding of surface plasmon polaritons excited at a gold film surface along corrugation-free channels in regions that are covered with randomly located surface scatterers, is considered using near-field microscopy for imaging of surface plasmon polariton intensity distributions at the surface. In the wavelength range 713-815 nm, we observed complete inhibition of the surface plasmon polariton propagation inside the random structures composed of individual ( approximately 70 nm high) gold bumps (and their clusters) placed on a 55 nm thick gold film with a bump density of 75 micro m-2. We demonstrate well-defined surface plasmon polariton guiding along corrugation-free 2 micro m wide channels in random structures and, in the wavelength range 738-774 nm, low-loss guiding around 20 degrees bends having a bend radius of approximately 15 micro m.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Aalborg University, Pontoppidanstraede 103, DK-9220 Aalborg Øst, Denmark. sergey@physics.auc.dk
authors.forename: S I
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Bozhevolnyi
authors.forename: V S
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Volkov
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Leosson
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Boltasseva
mesh_terms: D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry; D008027:Light; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D036103:Nanotechnology; D010316:Particle Size; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance
chemical_list: D006046:Gold