Near-field edge fringes at sharp material boundaries.

We have studied the formation of near-field fringes when sharp edges of materials are imaged using scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscope (s-SNOM). The materials we have investigated include dielectrics, metals, a near-perfect conductor, and those that possess anisotropic permittivity and hyperbolic dispersion. For our theoretical analysis, we use a technique that combines full-wave numerical simulations of tip-sample near-field interaction and signal demodulation at higher orders akin to what is done in typical s-SNOM experiments. Unlike previous tip-sample interaction near-field models, our advanced technique allows simulation of the realistic tip and sample structure. Our analysis clarifies edge imaging of recently emerged layered materials such as hexagonal boron nitride and transition metal dichalcogenides (in particular, molybdenum disulfide), as well as traditional plasmonic materials such as gold. Hexagonal boron nitride is studied at several wavelengths, including the wavelength where it possesses excitation of phonon-polaritons and hyperbolic dispersion. Based on our results of s-SNOM imaging in different demodulation orders, we specify resonant and non-resonant types of edges and describe the edge fringes for each case. We clarify near-field edge-fringe formation at material sharp boundaries, both outside bright fringes and the low-contrast region at the edge, and elaborate on the necessity of separating them from propagating waves on the surface of polaritonic materials.

Plasmonic and silicon spherical nanoparticle antireflective coatings.

Over the last decade, plasmonic antireflecting nanostructures have been extensively studied to be utilized in various optical and optoelectronic systems such as lenses, solar cells, photodetectors, and others. The growing interest to all-dielectric photonics as an alternative optical technology along with plasmonics motivates us to compare antireflective properties of plasmonic and all-dielectric nanoparticle coatings based on silver and crystalline silicon respectively. Our simulation results for spherical nanoparticles array on top of amorphous silicon show that both silicon and silver coatings demonstrate strong antireflective properties in the visible spectral range. For the first time, we show that zero reflectance from the structure with silicon coatings originates from the destructive interference of electric- and magnetic-dipole responses of nanoparticle array with the wave reflected from the substrate, and we refer to this reflection suppression as substrate-mediated Kerker effect. We theoretically compare the silicon and silver coating effectiveness for the thin-film photovoltaic applications. Silver nanoparticles can be more efficient, enabling up to 30% increase of the overall absorbance in semiconductor layer. Nevertheless, silicon coatings allow up to 64% absorbance increase in the narrow band spectral range because of the substrate-mediated Kerker effect, and band position can be effectively tuned by varying the nanoparticles sizes.

Experimental demonstration of titanium nitride plasmonic interconnects.

An insulator-metal-insulator plasmonic interconnect using TiN, a CMOS-compatible material, is proposed and investigated experimentally at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.55 µm. The TiN waveguide was shown to obtain propagation losses less than 0.8 dB/mm with a mode size of 9.8 µm on sapphire, which agree well with theoretical predictions. A theoretical analysis of a solid-state structure using Si(3)N(4) superstrates and ultra-thin metal strips shows that propagation losses less than 0.3 dB/mm with a mode size of 9 µm are attainable. This work illustrates the potential of TiN as a realistic plasmonic material for practical solid-state, integrated nano-optic and hybrid photonic devices.