Nanostructure-Mediated Launching and Detection of 2D Surface Plasmons by Jared Day Au nanoparticles deposited on a metallic film act as nanoantenna receivers and transmitters for the coupling of free-space radiation into, and out of, 2D surface plasmons. Nanosteps, sub-lO-nm gaps between metallic films of differing thickness, can also launch and detect surface plasmons. In this thesis both type...

Surface plasmons are widely interesting due to their ability to probe nanoscale dimensions. To create coherent plasmons, we demonstrate a nanolaser based on a plasmonic bandgap defect state inside a surface plasmonic crystal. A one-dimensional semiconductor-based plasmonic crystal is engineered to have stopbands in which surface plasmons are prohibited from travelling in the crystalline structu...

Feasibility of usage of surface plasmons in a new design of an integrated optical isolator has been studied. In the case of surface plasmons propagating at a boundary between a transition metal and a double-layer dielectric, there is a significant difference of optical loss for surface plasmons propagating in opposite directions. Utilizing this structure, it is feasible to fabricate a competiti...

The interaction between localized and propagating surface plasmons is investigated in a structure consisting of a two-dimensional periodic gold nanoparticle array, an SiO2 spacer, and a gold film. The resonance wavelengths of the two types of surface plasmons supported by the structure are tailored by changing the gold nanoparticle size and the array period. An anticrossing of the resonance pos...

Plasmonic gas sensors are optical sensors that use localized surface plasmons or extended surface plasmons as transducing platform. Surface plasmons are very sensitive to dielectric variations of the environment or to electron exchange, and these effects have been exploited for the realization of sensitive gas sensors. In this paper, we review our research work of the last few years on the synt...

The miniaturization of integrated optical circuits below the diffraction limit for high-speed manipulation of information is one of the cornerstones in plasmonics research. By coupling to surface plasmons supported on nanostructured metallic surfaces, light can be confined to the nanoscale, enabling the potential interface to electronic circuits. In particular, gap surface plasmons propagating ...

Coupled surface plasmons in one-dimensional assemblies of metal nanoparticles have attracted significant attention because strong interparticle interactions lead to large electromagnetic field enhancements that can be exploited for localizing and amplifying electromagnetic radiation in nanoscale structures. Ohmic loss (i.e., absorption by the metal), however, limits the performance of any appli...

The interference of surface plasmons can provide important information regarding the surface features of the hosting thin metal film. We present an investigation of the interference of optically excited surface plasmons in the Kretschmann configuration in the visible spectrum. Large area surface plasmon interference regions are generated at several wavelengths and imaged with the photon scannin...

By definition surface plasmons are the quanta of surface-charge-density oscillations, but the same terminology is commonly used for collective oscillations in the electron density at the surface of a metal. Because the surface charge oscillations are intimately coupled to electromagnetic fields, surface plasmons are polaritons. In the past, surface plasmons have attracted considerable attention...