Plasmon Assisted Optical Curtains

TL;DR

This paper predicts and explains an optical curtain effect created by metallic nano-objects, enabling the generation of spatially invariant light fields with potential applications in plasmonic nano-lithography.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of an optical curtain effect and provides a physical explanation, including design principles for controlling the effect through geometrical parameters.

Findings

Optical curtain effect can be achieved with metallic nanostrips and nanoslits.

The effect's formation depends on phase and amplitude control of incident light.

Potential for arbitrary optical curtain shapes in nano-lithography applications.

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 pi 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 nano-lithography.