Surface Plasmons in Nanostructures

Abstract

The miniaturization and dense integration of optical devices constitute major challenges in micro- and nanotechnology.  A hopeful approach to the downscaling of optical components involves surface plasmon polaritons, which are electromagnetic waves  propagating along a metal-dielectric interface.

In the talk I shall give a brief introduction to the nature of surface plasmon polaritons by discussing electromagnetic waves that propagate along the interface between a metal and dielectric. The fabrication results achieved during this master thesis will be presented.

The waveguides have been fabricated by two methods. One based on UV-lithography and a second based on electron beam lithography. Copolymer called Ormocomp has been used as dielectric and gold has been used as the metal for supporting the modes. The waveguides were successfully fabricated with various widths 10 μm and down to 200 nm, the thickness was constant at 12 nm. They have been analyzed for wavelengths in the regime 1000-1750 nm. The propagation lengths were measured as a function of wavelength and compared to the calculated values.

Speaker

Maksim Zalkovskij

Supervisors

Henrik Smith and Anders Kristensen

External examiner

Sergey I. Bozhevolnyi, Southern Danish University