event
Thursday 07 Mar 2013: Title: Plasmonic devices: Steering light photons and generating single plasmons
Choon How Gan - University of Exeter
HAR/170 (3D Visualisation Suite) 14:00-15:00
The ability of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) to "squeeze" through subwavelength channels and to induce localized field enhancement effects has spurred tremendous interest in nano-optic applications. SPPs are electromagnetic modes that possess a sub-diffraction effective surface area limited in principle only by loss.
In this talk, a plasmonic beam steering device that enables the dynamic steering of SPPs and light beams generated at the aperture of a waveguide supporting only the fundamental symmetric and antisymmetric modes will be presented. The steering mechanism, which depends on the interference between the fields scattered by the two modes, is elucidated with numerical simulations and far-field measurements from a simple experiment.
Additionally, an efficient compact III-V semiconductor single-plasmon source suitable for integrating quantum information networks and for nanophotonic applications will be proposed. To capture the main physics involved in the design of the plasmon source, a coupled-wave model is developed with the Lorentz reciprocity theorem. It will be shown that one can increase the total spontaneous emission rate and the decay rate into the plasmon channel by placing an ultrasmall cavity (< 0.001 um3) near the source.
