title: Plasmonic meta-screen for alleviating the trade-offs in the near-field optics.
abstract: We propose a "meta-screen" design, consisting of a metallic sheet patterned with a dense array of nano-sized slot antennas, for inducing sub-wavelength optical spots in the near-field. Compared to other transmission screen topologies, our design overcomes the trade-off of low throughput versus resolution of a sub-wavelength aperture by inducing resonance in the slots. In addition, the antenna array serves to effectively narrow the spot size through the superposition of spatially shifted beams produced by each slot element. Such a design offers a practical approach for extending the near-field sensing/imaging distance at optical frequencies. The effectiveness of narrowing the spot size through the array topology is demonstrated by evaluating the full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) beamwidth at a distance of 0.1lambda(0) away from the screen. We show that an array with just three elements improves the beamwidth by more than 30% compared to a single resonant slot element. In this paper, important issues such as the operating principle and the design process of the meta-screen, the characteristics of plasmonic slot antenna, the impact of the number of array elements, and the effect of asymmetry due to the presence of a supporting substrate are discussed.
authors: The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, 40 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2E4.
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Wang
authors: Alex M H
authors: AM
authors: Wong
authors: Loïc
authors: L
authors: Markley
authors: Amr S
authors: AS
authors: Helmy
authors: George V
authors: GV
authors: Eleftheriades
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D005898:Glass; D008027:Light; D008670:Metals; D008853:Microscopy / Q000379:methods*; D008872:Microwaves; D016011:Normal Distribution; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D012542:Scattering, Radiation
chemical_list: D008670:Metals