Nanophotonics

Nanophotonics or nano-optics is the study

of the behavior of light on the nanometer
scale, and of the interaction of nanometer-
scale objects with light. It is a branch of
optics, optical engineering, electrical
engineering, and nanotechnology. It often
(but not exclusively) involves metallic
components, which can transport and
focus light via surface plasmon polaritons.
The term "nano-optics", just like the term
"optics", usually refers to situations
involving ultraviolet, visible, and near-
infrared light (free-space wavelengths
from 300 to 1200 nanometers).

Background
Normal optical components, like lenses
and microscopes, generally cannot
normally focus light to nanometer (deep
subwavelength) scales, because of the
diffraction limit (Rayleigh criterion).
Nevertheless, it is possible to squeeze
light into a nanometer scale using other
techniques like, for example, surface
plasmons, localized surface plasmons
around nanoscale metal objects, and the
nanoscale apertures and nanoscale sharp
tips used in near-field scanning optical
microscopy (NSOM) and photoassisted
scanning tunnelling microscopy.[1]

Motivations
Nanophotonics researchers pursue a very
wide variety of goals, in fields ranging from
biochemistry to electrical engineering. A
few of these goals are summarized below.

Optoelectronics and
microelectronics
If light can be squeezed into a small
volume, it can be absorbed and detected
by a small detector. Small photodetectors
tend to have a variety of desirable
properties including low noise, high speed,
and low voltage and power.[2][3][4]

Small lasers have various desirable

properties for optical communication
including low threshold current (which
helps power efficiency) and fast
modulation[5] (which means more data
transmission). Very small lasers require
subwavelength optical cavities. An
example is spasers, the surface plasmon
version of lasers.
Integrated circuits are made using
photolithography, i.e. exposure to light. In
order to make very small transistors, the
light needs to be focused into extremely
sharp images. Using various techniques
such as immersion lithography and phase-
shifting photomasks, it has indeed been
possible to make images much finer than
the wavelength—for example, drawing
30 nm lines using 193 nm light.[6]
Plasmonic techniques have also been
proposed for this application.[7]

Heat-assisted magnetic recording is a

nanophotonic approach to increasing the
amount of data that a magnetic disk drive
can store. It requires a laser to heat a tiny,
subwavelength area of the magnetic
material before writing data. The magnetic
write-head would have metal optical
components to concentrate light at the
right location.

Miniaturization in optoelectronics, for

example the miniaturization of transistors
in integrated circuits, has improved their
speed and cost. However, optoelectronic
circuits can only be miniaturized if the
optical components are shrunk along with
the electronic components. This is
relevant for on-chip optical
communication (i.e. passing information
from one part of a microchip to another by
sending light through optical waveguides,
instead of changing the voltage on a
wire).[3][8]

Solar cells

Solar cells often work best when the light

is absorbed very close to the surface, both
because electrons near the surface have a
better chance of being collected, and
because the device can be made thinner,
which reduces cost. Researchers have
investigated a variety of nanophotonic
techniques to intensify light in the optimal
locations within a solar cell.[9]
Spectroscopy

Using nanophotonics to create high peak

intensities: If a given amount of light
energy is squeezed into a smaller and
smaller volume ("hot-spot"), the intensity in
the hot-spot gets larger and larger. This is
especially helpful in nonlinear optics; an
example is surface enhanced Raman
scattering. It also allows sensitive
spectroscopy measurements of even
single molecules located in the hot-spot,
unlike traditional spectroscopy methods
which take an average over millions or
billions of molecules.[10][11]
Microscopy

One goal of nanophotonics is to construct

a so-called "superlens", which would use
metamaterials (see below) or other
techniques to create images that are more
accurate than the diffraction limit (deep
subwavelength).

Near-field scanning optical microscope

(NSOM or SNOM) is a quite different
nanophotonic technique that
accomplishes the same goal of taking
images with resolution far smaller than the
wavelength. It involves raster-scanning a
very sharp tip or very small aperture over
the surface to be imaged.

Near-field microscopy refers more

generally to any technique using the near-
field (see below) to achieve nanoscale,
subwavelength resolution. For example,
dual polarization interferometry has
picometer resolution in the vertical plane
above the waveguide surface.

Principles
Plasmons and metal optics

Metals are an effective way to confine light

to far below the wavelength. This was
originally used in radio and microwave
engineering, where metal antennas and
waveguides may be hundreds of times
smaller than the free-space wavelength.
For a similar reason, visible light can be
confined to the nano-scale via nano-sized
metal structures, such as nano-sized
structures, tips, gaps, etc. This effect is
somewhat analogous to a lightning rod,
where the field concentrates at the tip.

This effect is fundamentally based on the

fact that the permittivity of the metal is
very large and negative. At very high
frequencies (near and above the plasma
frequency, usually ultraviolet), the
permittivity of a metal is not so large, and
the metal stops being useful for
concentrating fields.

Many nano-optics designs look like

common microwave or radiowave circuits,
but shrunk down by a factor of 100,000 or
more. After all, radiowaves, microwaves,
and visible light are all electromagnetic
radiation; they differ only in frequency. So
other things equal, a microwave circuit
shrunk down by a factor of 100,000 will
behave the same way but at 100,000 times
higher frequency. For example,
researchers have made nano-optical Yagi-
Uda antennas following essentially the
same design as used for radio Yagi-Uda
antennas.[12]

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image of a five-

element Yagi-Uda antenna consisting of a feed
element, one reflector, and three directors, fabricated
by e-beam lithography.[13]

Metallic parallel-plate waveguides

(striplines), lumped-constant circuit
elements such as inductance and
capacitance (at visible light frequencies,
the values of the latter being of the order
of femtohenries and attofarads,
respectively), and impedance-matching of
dipole antennas to transmission lines, all
familiar techniques at microwave
frequencies, are some current areas of
nanophotonics development. That said,
there are a number of very important
differences between nano-optics and
scaled-down microwave circuits. For
example, at optical frequency, metals
behave much less like ideal conductors,
and also exhibit interesting plasmon-
related effects like kinetic inductance and
surface plasmon resonance. Likewise,
optical fields interact with semiconductors
in a fundamentally different way than
microwaves do.
Near-field optics

If you take the Fourier transform of an

object, it consists of different spatial
frequencies. The higher frequencies
correspond to the very fine features and
sharp edges.

When light is emitted by such an object,

the light with very high spatial frequency
forms an evanescent wave, which only
exists in the near field (very close to the
object, within a wavelength or two) and
disappears in the far field. This is the
origin of the diffraction limit, which says
that when a lens images an object, the
subwavelength information is blurred out.

Nano-photonics is primarily concerned

with the near-field evanescent waves. For
example, a superlens (mentioned above)
would prevent the decay of the evanescent
wave, allowing higher-resolution imaging.

Metamaterials

Metamaterials are artificial materials

engineered to have properties that may not
be found in nature. They are created by
fabricating an array of structures much
smaller than a wavelength. The small
(nano) size of the structures is important:
That way, light interacts with them as if
they made up a uniform, continuous
medium, rather than scattering off the
individual structures.

See also
Photonics Spectra Journal

References
1. Hewakuruppu, Y., et al., Plasmonic "
pump – probe " method to study semi-
transparent nanofluids Archived March 3,
2016, at the Wayback Machine., Applied
Optics, 52(24):6041-6050
2. Assefa, Solomon; Xia, Fengnian; Vlasov,
Yurii A. (2010). "Reinventing germanium
avalanche photodetector for nanophotonic
on-chip optical interconnects". Nature. 464
(7285): 80–4.
Bibcode:2010Natur.464...80A .
doi:10.1038/nature08813 .
PMID 20203606 .
3. "Research Discovery By Ethiopian
Scientist At IBM at Tadias Magazine" .
Tadias.com. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
4. "Avalanche photodetector breaks speed
record" . physicsworld.com. Retrieved
2010-03-15.
5. Themistoklis P. H. Sidiropoulos, Robert
Röder, Sebastian Geburt, Ortwin Hess,
Stefan A. Maier, Carsten Ronning, Rupert F.
Oulton (2014). "Ultrafast plasmonic
nanowire lasers near the surface plasmon
frequency". Nature Physics. 10: 870–876.
Bibcode:2014NatPh..10..870S .
doi:10.1038/nphys3103 . Press release
Archived December 25, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine.
6. Hand, Aaron. "High-Index Lenses Push
Immersion Beyond 32 nm" .
7. Liang Pan et al. (2011). "Maskless
Plasmonic Lithography at 22 nm
Resolution" . Scientific Reports. 1.
Bibcode:2011NatSR...1E.175P .
doi:10.1038/srep00175 . PMC 3240963  .
PMID 22355690 .
8. "IBM Research | IBM Research | Silicon
Integrated Nanophotonics" .
Domino.research.ibm.com. 2010-03-04.
Retrieved 2010-03-15.
9. Vivian E. Ferry, Jeremy N. Munday, Harry
A. Atwater (2010). "Design Considerations
for Plasmonic Photovoltaics". Advanced
Materials. 22 (43): 4794–4808.
doi:10.1002/adma.201000488 .
10. "Enhancing single-molecule
fluorescence with nanophotonics". FEBS
Letters. 588: 3547–3552.
doi:10.1016/j.febslet.2014.06.016 .
11. R. Zhang, Y. Zhang, Z. C. Dong, S. Jiang,
C. Zhang, L. G. Chen, L. Zhang, Y. Liao, J.
Aizpurua, Y. Luo, J. L. Yang, J. G. Hou (6
June 2013). "Chemical mapping of a single
molecule by plasmon-enhanced Raman
scattering". Nature. 498: 82–86.
Bibcode:2013Natur.498...82Z .
doi:10.1038/nature12151 .
PMID 23739426 .
12. Daniel Dregely, Richard Taubert, Jens
Dorfmüller, Ralf Vogelgesang, Klaus Kern,
Harald Giessen. "3D optical Yagi–Uda
nanoantenna array" . Nature
Communications. 2 (267): 267.
Bibcode:2011NatCo...2E.267D .
doi:10.1038/ncomms1268 . PMC 3104549 
 . PMID 21468019 .
13. van Hulst, Niek. "Optical Nano-antenna
Controls Single Quantum Dot Emission" .
2physics. 2physics.

External links
ePIXnet Nanostructuring Platform for
Photonic Integration
 Optically induced mass transport in near
fields
"Photonics Breakthrough for Silicon
Chips: Light can exert enough force to
flip switches on a silicon chip," by Hong
X. Tang, IEEE Spectrum, October 2009
Nanophotonics, nano-optics and
nanospectroscopy A. J. Meixner (Ed.)
Thematic Series in the Open Access
Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology

Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Nanophotonics&oldid=792536569"
Last edited 6 months ago by Jimpaz

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

otherwise noted.