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G. Wurtz

Publications and source records attributed to G. Wurtz.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Digital resolution enhancement in surface plasmon microscopy

The use of photonic crystal and negative refractive index materials is known to improve resolution of optical microscopy and lithography devices down to 80 nm level. Here we demonstrate that utilization of well-known digital image recovery techniques allows us to further improve resolution of optical microscope down to 30 nm level. Our microscope is based on a flat dielectric mirror deposited onto an array of nanoholes in thin gold film. This two-dimensional photonic crystal mirror may have either positive or negative effective refractive index as perceived by surface plasmon polartions in the visible frequency range. The optical images formed by the mirror are enhanced using simple digital filters.

physics.optics

Diffraction grating revisited: a high-resolution plasmonic dispersive element

The spectral dispersion of light is critical in applications ranging from spectroscopy to sensing and optical communication technologies. We demonstrate that ultra-high spectral dispersion can be achieved with a finite-size surface plasmon polaritonic (SPP) crystal. The 3D to 2D reduction in light diffraction dimensions due to interaction of light with collective electron modes in a metal is shown to increase the dispersion by some two orders of magnitude, due to a two-stage process: (i) conversion of the incident light to SPP Bloch waves on a nanostructured surface and (ii) Bloch waves traversing the SPP crystal boundary. This has potential for high-resolution spectrograph applications in photonics, optical communications and lab-on-a-chip, all within a planar device which is compact and easy to fabricate.

cond-mat.str-el

Immersion microscopy based on photonic crystal materials

Theoretical model of the enhanced optical resolution of the surface plasmon immersion microscope is developed, which is based on the optics of surface plasmon Bloch waves in the tightly bound approximation. It is shown that a similar resolution enhancement may occur in a more general case of an immersion microscope based on photonic crystal materials with either positive or negative effective refractive index. Both signs of the effective refractive index have been observed in our experiments with surface plasmon immersion microscope, which is also shown to be capable of individual virus imaging.

cond-mat.str-el