title: Electromechanically Tunable Suspended Optical Nanoantenna.
abstract: Coupling mechanical degrees of freedom with plasmonic resonances has potential applications in optomechanics, sensing, and active plasmonics. Here we demonstrate a suspended two-wire plasmonic nanoantenna acting like a nanoelectrometer. The antenna wires are supported and electrically connected via thin leads without disturbing the antenna resonance. As a voltage is applied, equal charges are induced on both antenna wires. The resulting equilibrium between the repulsive Coulomb force and the restoring elastic bending force enables us to precisely control the gap size. As a result the resonance wavelength and the field enhancement of the suspended optical nanoantenna can be reversibly tuned. Our experiments highlight the potential to realize large bandwidth optical nanoelectromechanical systems.
authors.affiliation: Nano-Optics and Biophotonics Group, Experimental Physics 5, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen-Center for Complex Material Systems (RCCM), University of Würzburg , Am Hubland, D-97074, Germany.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Nano-Optics and Biophotonics Group, Experimental Physics 5, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen-Center for Complex Material Systems (RCCM), University of Würzburg , Am Hubland, D-97074, Germany.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Razinskas
authors.affiliation: Nano-Optics and Biophotonics Group, Experimental Physics 5, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen-Center for Complex Material Systems (RCCM), University of Würzburg , Am Hubland, D-97074, Germany.|Christiansen Research Group, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light , D-91058, Erlangen, Germany.|Institute Nano-Architectures for Energy Conversion, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH , D-14109, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Thorsten
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Feichtner
authors.affiliation: Nano-Optics and Biophotonics Group, Experimental Physics 5, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen-Center for Complex Material Systems (RCCM), University of Würzburg , Am Hubland, D-97074, Germany.
authors.forename: Swen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grossmann
authors.affiliation: Christiansen Research Group, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light , D-91058, Erlangen, Germany.|Institute Nano-Architectures for Energy Conversion, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie GmbH , D-14109, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Christiansen
authors.affiliation: Nano-Optics and Biophotonics Group, Experimental Physics 5, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen-Center for Complex Material Systems (RCCM), University of Würzburg , Am Hubland, D-97074, Germany.
authors.forename: Bert
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hecht
keywords: Coulomb force; Suspended optical nanoantenna (SONA); nano-optomechanics; nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS); nanoelectrometer