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arXiv · 1207.1112

Measuring the mode volume of plasmonic nanocavities using coupled optical emitters

Kasey J. Russell·Kitty Y. M. Yeung·Evelyn Hu
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Abstract

Metallic optical systems can confine light to deep sub-wavelength dimensions, but verifying the level of confinement at these length scales typically requires specialized techniques and equipment for probing the near-field of the structure. We experimentally measured the confinement of a metal-based optical cavity by using the cavity modes themselves as a sensitive probe of the cavity characteristics. By perturbing the cavity modes with conformal dielectric layers of sub-nm thickness using atomic layer deposition, we find the exponential decay length of the modes to be less than 5% of the free-space wavelength (λ) and the mode volume to be of order λ^3/1000. These results provide experimental confirmation of the deep sub-wavelength confinement capabilities of metal-based optical cavities.

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Kasey J. Russell, Kitty Y. M. Yeung, Evelyn Hu. 2012-07-04. Measuring the mode volume of plasmonic nanocavities using coupled optical emitters. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.85.245445

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