title: Optical properties of a nanomatch-like plasmonic structure.
abstract: The optical properties of a match-like plasmonic nanostructure are numerically investigated using full-wave finite-difference time-domain analysis in conjunction with dispersive material models. This work is mainly motivated by the developed technique enabling reproducible fabrication of nanomatch structures as well as the growing applications that utilize the localized field enhancement in plasmonic nanostructures. Our research revealed that due to the pronounced field enhancement and larger resonance tunabilities, some nanomatch topologies show potentials for various applications in the field of, e.g., sensing as well as a novel scheme for highly reproducible tips in scanning near field optical microscopy, among others. Despite the additional degrees of freedom that are offered by the composite nature of the proposed nanomatch topology, the paper also reflects on a fundamental complication intrinsic to the material interfaces especially in the nanoscale: stoichiometric mixing. We conclude that the specificity in material modeling will become a significant issue in future research on functionalized composite nanostructures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Material Science and Technology, Research Center of Laser Fusion, China Academy of Engineering Physics, Sichuan 621900, China. xudong.cui@uni-due.de
authors.forename: Xudong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Erni
authors.forename: Lixin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dong
mesh_terms: D004553:Electric Conductivity; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D008670:Metals / Q000737:chemistry; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry*; D055620:Optical Phenomena; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman; D013997:Time Factors
chemical_list: D008670:Metals