Abstract
Optical antenna is a nanoscale miniaturisation of radio or microwave antennas that is also governed by the rule of plasmonics. We introduce various types of optical antenna and make an overview of recent developments in optical antenna research. The role of local and surface plasmons in optical antenna is explained through antenna resonance and resonance conditions for specific metal structures are explicitly obtained. A strong electric field is shown to exist within a highly localised region of optical antennas such as antenna feed gap or apertures. We describe physical properties of field enhancement in apertures (circular and rectangular holes) and gaps (infinite slit and feed gap), as well as experimental techniques measuring enhanced electric vector field. We discuss the analogies and differences between conventional and optical antennas with a projection for future developments.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 407-423 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Contemporary Physics |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2009 Mar |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank D.S. Kim for invaluable discussions on the topic and J.H. Eberly for his encouragement. We also thank M.J. Kim for her help in preparing the manuscript. This work is supported in part by KOSEF, KRF, MOCIE and the Seoul R & BD program.
Keywords
- Enhancement
- Metal
- Optical antenna
- Resonance
- Subwavelength
- Surface plasmon
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy