Pavel Ginzburg

Near-Field Interference for the Unidirectional Excitation of Electromagnetic Guided Modes

Controlling Light Propagation Surface plasmons are light-induced collective electronic excitations in a metal that offer the possibility of manufacturing optoelectronic devices at nanometer scale. Before such shrinking can be achieved, the propagation direction and lifetime of the plasmonic excitations have to be controlled (see the Perspective by Miroshnichenko and Kivshar). Rodríguez-Fortuño et al. (p. 328) show how this is done using polarized light. Alternatively, using an array of metallic nanoantennae (in this case, slits) patterned into a thin gold film, Lin et al. (p. 331) present a further improvement on current plasmonic coupling schemes that has the potential to encode information contained in both the intensity and polarization of light. Near-field interference can be used to control the directional propagation of electromagnetic excitations. [Also see Perspective by Miroshnichenko and Kivshar] Wave interference is a fundamental manifestation of the superposition principle with numerous applications. Although in conventional optics, interference occurs between waves undergoing different phase advances during propagation, we show that the vectorial structure of the near field of an emitter is essential for controlling its radiation as it interferes with itself on interaction with a mediating object. We demonstrate that the near-field interference of a circularly polarized dipole results in the unidirectional excitation of guided electromagnetic modes in the near field, with no preferred far-field radiation direction. By mimicking the dipole with a single illuminated slit in a gold film, we measured unidirectional surface-plasmon excitation in a spatially symmetric structure. The surface wave direction is switchable with the polarization.

Gap plasmon polariton structure for very efficient microscale-to-nanoscale interfacing.

The seamless transition between microscale photonics and nanoscale plasmonics requires overpassing different waveguiding mechanisms and a few orders of magnitude in the lateral dimension. Exploiting gap plasmon-polariton waves both at the microscale and nanoscale with an ultrashort (few micrometers) nonadiabatic tapered gap plasmon waveguide, we show theoretically that very high-power transfer efficiency (approximately 70%) is achieved. The same mechanism may be used to harvest impinging light waves and direct them into a nanohole or slit to exhibit an anomalous transmission without the conventional periodic structures. The interplay of plasmonic and oscillating modes is analyzed.

Photonic spin Hall effect in hyperbolic metamaterials for polarization-controlled routing of subwavelength modes

The routing of light in a deep subwavelength regime enables a variety of important applications in photonics, quantum information technologies, imaging and biosensing. Here we describe and experimentally demonstrate the selective excitation of spatially confined, subwavelength electromagnetic modes in anisotropic metamaterials with hyperbolic dispersion. A localized, circularly polarized emitter placed at the boundary of a hyperbolic metamaterial is shown to excite extraordinary waves propagating in a prescribed direction controlled by the polarization handedness. Thus, a metamaterial slab acts as an extremely broadband, nearly ideal polarization beam splitter for circularly polarized light. We perform a proof of concept experiment with a uniaxial hyperbolic metamaterial at radio-frequencies revealing the directional routing effect and strong subwavelength λ/300 confinement. The proposed concept of metamaterial-based subwavelength interconnection and polarization-controlled signal routing is based on the photonic spin Hall effect and may serve as an ultimate platform for either conventional or quantum electromagnetic signal processing.

Spin–orbit coupling in surface plasmon scattering by nanostructures

The spin Hall effect leads to the separation of electrons with opposite spins in different directions perpendicular to the electric current flow because of interaction between spin and orbital angular momenta. Similarly, photons with opposite spins (different handedness of circular light polarization) may take different trajectories when interacting with metasurfaces that break spatial inversion symmetry or when the inversion symmetry is broken by the radiation of a dipole near an interface. Here we demonstrate a reciprocal effect of spin-orbit coupling when the direction of propagation of a surface plasmon wave, which intrinsically has unusual transverse spin, determines a scattering direction of spin-carrying photons. This spin-orbit coupling effect is an optical analogue of the spin injection in solid-state spintronic devices (inverse spin Hall effect) and may be important for optical information processing, quantum optical technology and topological surface metrology.

Nano-plasmonic antennas in the near infrared regime

Plasmonic nano-antennas constitute a central research topic in current science and engineering with an enormous variety of potential applications. Here we review the recent progress in the niche of plasmonic nano-antennas operating in the near infrared part of the spectrum which is important for a variety of applications. Tuning of the resonance into the near infrared regime is emphasized in the perspectives of fabrication, measurement, modeling, and analytical treatments, concentrating on the vast recent achievements in these areas.

Nonlocal ponderomotive nonlinearity in plasmonics

We analyze an inherent nonlinearity of surface plasmon polaritons at the interface of Fermi-Dirac metal plasma, stemming from the depletion of electron density in high-intensity regions. The derived optical nonlinear coefficients are comparable with the experimental values for metals. We calculate the dispersion relations for the nonlinear propagation of high-intensity surface plasmon polaritons, predicting a nonlinearity-induced cutoff and vanishing group velocity.

Manipulating polarization of light with ultrathin epsilon-near-zero metamaterials

One of the basic functionalities of photonic devices is the ability to manipulate the polarization state of light. Polarization components are usually implemented using the retardation effect in natural birefringent crystals and, thus, have a bulky design. Here, we have demonstrated the polarization manipulation of light by employing a thin subwavelength slab of metamaterial with an extremely anisotropic effective permittivity tensor. Polarization properties of light incident on the metamaterial in the regime of hyperbolic, epsilon-near-zero, and conventional elliptic dispersions were compared. We have shown that both reflection from and transmission through λ/20 thick slab of the metamaterial may provide nearly complete linear-to-circular polarization conversion or 90° linear polarization rotation, not achievable with natural materials. Using ellipsometric measurements, we experimentally studied the polarization conversion properties of the metamaterial slab made of the plasmonic nanorod arrays in different dispersion regimes. We have also suggested all-optical ultrafast control of reflected or transmitted light polarization by employing metal nonlinearities.

Microscopic model of Purcell enhancement in hyperbolic metamaterials

We study theoretically the dramatic enhancement of spontaneous emission in metamaterials with the hyperbolic dispersion modeled as a cubic lattice of anisotropic resonant dipoles. We analyze the dependence of the Purcell factor on the source position in the lattice unit cell and demonstrate that the optimal emitter positions needed to achieve large Purcell factors and Lamb shifts are in the local field maxima. We show that the calculated Green function has a characteristic crosslike shape, spatially modulated due to the structural discreteness. Our basic microscopic theory provides fundamental insights into the rapidly developing field of hyperbolic metamaterials.

Plasmonic Nanoantennas for Broad-Band Enhancement of Two-Photon Emission from Semiconductors

We demonstrate experimentally and theoretically a broad-band enhancement of the spontaneous two-photon emission from AlGaAs at room temperature by plasmonic nanoantenna arrays fabricated on the semiconductor surface. Plasmonic structures with inherently low quality factors but very small effective volumes are shown to be optimal. A 20-fold enhancement was achieved for the entire antenna array, corresponding to an enhancement of nearly 3 orders of magnitude for charge carriers emitting at the near field of a plasmonic antenna.

Resonances on-demand for plasmonic nano-particles.

A method for designing plasmonic particles with desired resonance spectra by exploiting the interaction of local geometry with surface charge distribution and applying evolutionary algorithm is presented. The method is based on repetitive perturbations of an initial particles shape while calculating the eigenvalues of the various quasistatic resonances. Novel family of particles with collocated dipole-quadrupole resonances was designed, as an example for the unique power of the method.