Squeezing visible light waves into a 3-nm-thick and 55-nm-long plasmon cavity.
We demonstrate controlled squeezing of visible light waves into nanometer-sized optical cavities. The light is perpendicularly confined in a few-nanometer-thick SiO2 film sandwiched between Au claddings in the form of surface plasmon polaritons and exhibits Fabry-Perot resonances in a longitudinal direction. As the thickness of the dielectric core is reduced, the plasmon wavelength becomes shorter; then a smaller cavity is realized. A dispersion relation down to a surface plasmon wavelength of 51 nm for a red light, which is less than 8% of the free-space wavelength, was experimentally observed. Any obvious breakdowns of the macroscopic electromagnetics based on continuous dielectric media were not disclosed for 3-nm-thick cores.
Miyazaki
Hideki T
HT
Materials Engineering Laboratory, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-2-1 Sengen, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0047, Japan. MIYAZAKI.Hideki@nims.go.jp
Kurokawa
Yoichi
Y
D008027:Light; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000379:methods*