Plasmon-Assisted optical curtains

Abstract

We predict an optical curtain effect, i. e., formation of a spatially invariant light field as light emerges from a set of periodic metallic nano-objects. The underlying physical mechanism of generation of this unique optical curtain can be explained in both the spatial domain and the wave-vector domain. In particular, in each period, we use one metallic nanostrip to equate the amplitudes of lights impinging on the openings of two metallic nanoslits and also shift their phases by π difference. We elaborate the influence on the output effect from some geometrical parameters like the periodicity, the slit height, and so on. By controlling the light illuminated on metallic subwavelength apertures, it is practical to generate optical curtains of arbitrary forms, which may open new routes of plasmonic nanolithography. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.