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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik
O 72: Plasmonics and Nanooptics VI
O 72.10: Talk
Thursday, March 25, 2010, 17:15–17:30, H32
Electrically influencing the surface plasmon dispersion relation — •Brian Ashall1, Michael Berndt2, and Dominic Zerulla1 — 1School of Physics, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland. — 2Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, 01307 Dresden, Germany.
Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) are a resonant coupling of electromagnetic radiation to charge density oscillations of the conduction electrons at the surface of a metal. As this SPP charge density oscillation is based on electron movement, it is intuitive to consider the possibility of influencing SPPs with an applied electric current, which also moves the charges to which the SPPs are coupled. This possibility to directly influence SPPs is examined experimentally, along with indirect electrical influences, such as electric Joule heating. Additionally, the inverse process is examined; i.e. the potential for the creation of a direct net movement of electrons by propagating SPPs. The possibility for this to occur is supported by the fact that the electromagnetic waves describing SPPs possess electrical field components along the propagation direction of the plasmons, and so they should have some potential to move the charge carriers to which they are coupled.