Plasmonic Amplifiers: Engineering Giant Light Enhancements by Tuning Resonances in Multiscale Plasmonic Nanostructures

The unique ability of plasmonic nanostructures to guide, enhance, and manipulate subwavelength light offers multiple novel applications in chemical and biological sensing, imaging, and photonic microcircuitry. Here the reproducible, giant light amplification in multiscale plasmonic structures is dem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Germany), 2013-06, Vol.9 (11), p.1939-1946
Main Authors: Chen, Aiqing, Miller, Ryan L., DePrince III, A. Eugene, Joshi-Imre, Alexandra, Shevchenko, Elena, Ocola, Leonidas E., Gray, Stephen K., Welp, Ulrich, Vlasko-Vlasov, Vitalii K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Density
Design engineering
Diffraction gratings
Gratings (spectra)
light enhancement
Nanocomposites
Nanomaterials
Nanostructure
Nanotechnology
ordered arrays
plasmonic nanostructures
Plasmonics
SERS
templated self-assembly
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Summary:The unique ability of plasmonic nanostructures to guide, enhance, and manipulate subwavelength light offers multiple novel applications in chemical and biological sensing, imaging, and photonic microcircuitry. Here the reproducible, giant light amplification in multiscale plasmonic structures is demonstrated. These structures combine strongly coupled components of different dimensions and topologies that resonate at the same optical frequency. A light amplifier is constructed using a silver mirror carrying light‐enhancing surface plasmons, dielectric gratings forming distributed Bragg cavities on top of the mirror, and gold nanoparticle arrays self‐assembled into the grating grooves. By tuning the resonances of the individual components to the same frequency, multiple enhancement of the light intensity in the nanometer gaps between the particles is achieved. Using a monolayer of benzenethiol molecules on this structure, an average SERS enhancement factor ∼108 is obtained, and the maximum enhancement in the interparticle hot‐spots is ∼3 × 1010, in good agreement with FDTD calculations. The high enhancement factor, large density of well‐ordered hot‐spots, and good fidelity of the SERS signal make this design a promising platform for quantitative SERS sensing, optical detection, efficient solid state lighting, advanced photovoltaics, and other emerging photonic applications. A new approach to the design of plasmonic structures is demonstrated for reliable giant light amplification based on components of different size and topology resonating at the same optical frequency. Using a silver mirror carrying surface plasmons, gratings forming distributed Bragg cavities, and gold nanoparticles supporting resonant Mie modes self‐assembled in these templates, system resonances are tuned for the same wavelength and multiple enhancement of the light is achieved.
ISSN:1613-6810
1613-6829
DOI:10.1002/smll.201202216