Efficient channel-plasmon excitation by nano-mirrors

摘要

We demonstrate a configuration for efficient channel-plasmon mode excitation using tapered terminations of V-shaped groove waveguides. The plasmon excitation is achieved by directly illuminating tapers of gold V-grooves with a focused laser beam, incident normally onto the sample surface. For near-infrared wavelengths, we find experimentally as well as numerically, by conducting three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain calculations, that the efficiency of channel-plasmon mode excitation exceeds 10% in the optimum configuration, which is the highest experimentally observed efficiency of coupling from free-propagation light into a nanoscale-size waveguide.