title: Metamaterials for enhanced polarization conversion in plasmonic excitation.
abstract: Surface plasmons efficient excitation is typically expected to be strongly constrained to transverse magnetic (TM) polarized incidence, as demonstrated so far, due to its intrinsic TM polarization. We report a designer plasmonic metamaterial that is engineered in a deep subwavelength scale in visible optical frequencies to overcome this fundamental limitation, and allows transverse electric (TE) polarized incidence to be strongly coupled to surface plasmons. The experimental verification, which is consistent with the analytical and numerical models, demonstrates this enhanced TE-to-plasmon coupling with efficiency close to 100%, which is far from what is possible through naturally available materials. This discovery will help to efficiently utilize the energy fallen into TE polarization and drastically increase overall excitation efficiency of future plasmonic devices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, United States.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Amit
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mizrahi
authors.forename: Steve
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zamek
authors.forename: Zhaowei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Vitaliy
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Lomakin
authors.forename: Yeshaiahu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fainman
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004563:Electrochemistry / Q000379:methods*; D008422:Materials Testing; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission / Q000379:methods; D049329:Nanostructures; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000379:methods*; D055095:Optics and Photonics / Q000379:methods; D012542:Scattering, Radiation; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000379:methods*