Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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O: Fachverband Oberflächenphysik

O 4: Plasmonics and nanooptics: Fabrication and characterization

O 4.6: Talk

Monday, March 12, 2018, 11:45–12:00, MA 041

Perfect Gold Nanoantennas — •René Kullock, Xiaofei Wu, Monika Emmerling, and Bert Hecht — NanoOptics & Biophotonics Group, Experimental Physics 5, University of Würzburg, Germany

Gold nanoantennas find a growing interest in the scientific community as they efficiently link localized electrical fields with propagating electromagnetic light waves. Hence, they can be used to optically excite small volumes of e.g. molecules or -- the other way around -- enhance the light emission due to inelastic electron tunneling inside the antenna gap [1]. Unfortunately, the performance of antennas often varies strongly as the precision of fabrication methods is limited. Although a lot of advances have been made over the years to increase the accuracy [2], most structures in literature look rather potato-shaped than powerpoint-perfect.

Here, we present a method for fabricating perfect gold nanoantennas on transparent glass substrates in 21 easy steps. The antennas consist of two arms, show crystalline facets and their gaps can be tuned to desired dimensions. The fabrication utilizes top-down as well as button-up methods and will be discussed in detail. We believe that these antennas open up the field to plasmonic experiments with atomic precision.

[1] J. Kern et al., Nat Photon 9, 9 (2015)

[2] J.-S. Huang et al., Nat Comm 1, 150 (2010)