Propagation of visible light in nanostructured niobium stripes embedded in a dielectric polymer

Abstract Nanometric metallic stripes allow the transmission of optical signals via excitation and propagation surface-localized evanescent electromagnetic waves, with important applications in field nano-photonics. Whereas this kind plasmonic phenomena typically exploits noble metals, like Ag or Au, other materials can exhibit viable light-transport efficiency. In work, we demonstrate transport visible light nanometric niobium coupled a dielectric polymeric layer, exploiting remotely-excited/detected Raman signal black phosphorus (bP) as probe. The mechanism is ascribed to generation surface plasmon polaritons at Nb/polymer interface. length limited due lossy nature range, but material may exploitation specific functionalities that are absent noble-metal counterparts.