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PIERS Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 1215, 2013

Characteristics of an Optical Bowtie Nanoantenna

Ahmed Abbas, Mostafa El-Said, and Samir F. Mahmoud Electronic and Communication Engineering Department, Cairo University, Egypt

Abstract The performance of Bow-Tie gold nanoantenna placed on glass substrate is studied.
Upon illuminating such nanoantenna by a Gaussian pulse, the received electric eld across the antenna gap is monitored and plotted against frequency using the CST software. Meanwhile the complex impedance dened as the ratio of longitudinal E to the transverse H within the gap is monitored. It is shown that the electric eld across the gap displays a peak value at the same frequency that corresponds to impedance resonance. A transmission line model is proposed, by which we can predict the dependence of the resonant frequency on the Bow-tie length and the gap between its arms. 1. INTRODUCTION

Optical nanoantennas have recently found several applications in areas such as near eld probing in optical microscopy, nanometric optical tweezers, and biomedical applications [1, 2]. The optical nanoantenna is composed of a resonant length of rare metal, such as silver or gold, placed on glass or any dielectric layer. There is a fundamental dierence between wire antennas in the radio frequency (RF) range and the optical range. Metallic wire antennas in the RF spectrum behave as almost perfectly conducting wires. As a consequence, the current wave developed on such wires propagate at the same velocity as that in the outer free space. In contrast, at Infrared or optical frequencies, metals no longer behave as perfect conductors. Instead, they are characterized as dielectrics with frequency dependent complex permittivity [3, 4]. Metals, such as Silver, Gold and Aluminum display permittivities with negative real part. This negative permittivity cause localized Plasmon to form at the metal-dielectric interface with little penetration in metal or the embedding dielectric. Another important consequence is that the current wave on the metal travels at a much slower velocity than that in the surrounding dielectric or the outer free space. This leads to compact antenna whose length is much shorter than a free space wavelength. A nanoantenna of Bow-tie shape is depicted in Fig. 1. The plane of interface between the metal and dielectric is the y -z plane. A Plasmon mode on this metal-dielectric interface is a TM wave [3, 4] with the magnetic eld H lying totally on the interface along the x-direction. The electric eld has both transverse Ez and longitudinal Ey components. There is a standing wave along the antenna length (along y ) and the (complex) phase constant of the wave is given by: = k0
m d m

,
d

(1)

where k0 is the free space wavenumber (= /c = 2/0 ), while m and d are the relative permittivity of the metal and dielectric material respectively. Noting that Re(m ) is negative and greater in magnitude than d at the frequencies of interest, we infer that is > k0 d . Furthermore if Re(m +d ) approaches zero, will attain very high values. This will reect on the resonant antenna length which will be much shorter than the free space wavelength. In the next section, we present simulation results for the longitudinal electric eld across the Bow-tie gap versus the applied frequency of the light wave that illuminates the antenna. We dene an impedance Zg , as the longitudinal E eld to transverse H eld in the gap. We present simulated results of Zg versus frequency with the gap spacing g as a parameter. In Section 3 we propose a simple transmission line model for the nanoantenna that accounts for the gap length and end eects.
2. SIMULATION RESULTS

The CST commercial software is used to obtain the nanoantenna response to an incident Gaussian pulse. The longitudinal electric eld Ey in the gap between the antenna arms is plotted versus the applied frequency with the antenna half length L as a parameter in Fig. 2. The eld displays a peak value at f = 214, 230, and 256 THz, corresponding to L = 175, 150, and 125 nm respectively. The gap spacing g is xed at g = 10 nm. In Fig. 3, the Real and imaginary parts of the impedance

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 12-15, 2013 1709
X

Y g

(a)
Z

Dielectric L ayer

(b)

Figure 1: Nanoantenna made of metal on dielectric layer. (a) Top view. (b) Side view.

Zg = Ey /Hx are plotted versus frequency for L = 125 nm and g = 10 nm. It is noted that Ey displays a peak at the same resonant frequency where Re(Zg ) is maximum and Im(Zg ) = 0. Similar results for Zg were obtained for L = 150 and 175 nm (not shown) and lead to the same conclusion stated above. Simulation results for the resonant frequency of Bow-tie antenna as a function of the gap g for a given L is shown in Fig. 4. The resonant frequency corresponds to maximum Ey in the gap and real impedance Zg . It is clear that the resonant frequency shows blue shift as g increases. These results have the same trend as those reported in [3].
Enhanced Electric field inside Bowtie gap vs freq.
40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 100

L=125 nm g=10 nm L=150 nm g=10nm L=175 nm g=10 nm 200 300 freq. (THz) 400 500

Figure 2: The longitudinal Ey eld in the gap versus frequency with antenna length L as a parameter.

complex wave impedance L=125 nm g=10 nm

8000 6000 4000 2000 0 -2000 -4000 100 200 300 400 500

Zg imaginary part Zg real part

freq. (Thz)

Figure 3: Simulated real and imaginary parts of Zg versus frequency. Antenna length L = 125 nm and the gap g = 10 nm. 3. A TRANSMISSION LINE MODEL

In this section we attempt to nd a simple transmission line model for the Bow-tie antenna to explain the behavior of the resonant frequency with the antenna length and gap. The rst resonance of the nano-antenna occurs when the total phase dierence between antenna terminals is equal to radians. The equivalent transmission line of one arm of the antenna is shown in Fig. 5. The T.L

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PIERS Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 1215, 2013

has a length le and is open circuited at the right-hand terminal, where le = L + l. Here l accounts for eld fringing at the right terminal. The wave phase constant r on this T.L is the real part of the TM given by (1). The gap is accounted for by a series capacitance C connected to the T.L at one end and is grounded at the other end. The resonance condition dictates that the sum of impedances looking right and left of the capacitor must equal zero. Mathematically, this reads: jZ0 Cot (r le ) + (jC )1 = 0, (2)

where Z0 is the characteristic impedance of the T.L. Expecting r le to be close to /2, we set r le = /2 + ; 1. Then (2) is approximated by: tan Hence: k0 le = In the above n( ) = = (CZ0 )1 (3)

1 + (CZ0 )1 n( ) 2 r = Re k0
m d m

(4)

(5)
d

Equation (4) can be solved for the resonant frequency for a given le and the product Z0 C (sec). We infer from (4) that as C is reduced, k0 increases. In other words, as the gap g of the Bow-tie increases, the resonant frequency increases showing a blue shift for the same antenna length. This agrees with the simulation results in Fig. 4. We choose to have Z0 C a sole function of the gap spacing g while l is a sole function of antenna length L. By comparing the simulated results in Fig. 4 with computed resonant frequencies obtained from (4), we optimize Z0 C and l to have the best t to the simulated results of Fig. 4. A comparison between the computed and simulated resonant frequencies for three values of antenna length is shown in Fig. 6. Close agreement between the results is clear, which proves the adequacy of out T.L. model.
Resonant freq vs gap length
290 280 270 260 250 240 230 220 210 200 190 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 gap length (nm) 18 20 22 Resonant freq. (Th z)

L=125 nm L=150 nm L=175 nm

Figure 4: Resonant frequency versus the gap length g . L is a parameter.

280 260 240 220 200 180 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 gap length (nm) 18 20 22

Figure 5: The equivalent transmission line of one arm of the antenna.

resonant freq. vs gap Simulated L=125 resonant freq. vs gap (T.L model) L=125 resonant freq. vs gap simulated L=150 resonant freq. vs gap (T.L. model) L=150 resonant freq vs gap simulated L=175

Figure 6: Comparison between antenna resonant frequencies obtained by simulations and those predicted by the T.L. model for L = 125, 150 and 175 nm.

Progress In Electromagnetics Research Symposium Proceedings, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug. 12-15, 2013 1711 4. CONCLUSIONS

A study of a Bow-tie nanoantenna made of gold on glass substrate is performed using the commercial CST software. It has been found that maximum electric eld across the nanoantenna gap in the Infra-red range occurs at the resonant frequency that corresponds to a real gap impedance. The latter was dened as the ratio of the longitudinal E -eld to the transverse H eld in the gap. A simple transmission line model is devised to predict the resonant frequency of the nanoantenna as a function of antenna length and the gap between antenna arms.
REFERENCES

1. Ploschner, M., M. Mazilu, T. F. Krauss, and K. Dholakia, Optical forces near a nanoantenna, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9SS, UK. 2. Gramotnev, D. K. and S. I. Bozhevolnyi, Plasmonics beyond the diraction limit, Nature Photonics, Vol. 4, Feb. 2010. 3. Biagioni, P., J.-S. Huang, and B. Hecht, Nanoantennas for visible and infrared radiation, Jan. 2012. 4. Barnes, W. L., A. Dereux, and T. W. Ebbesen, Surface plasmon subwavelength optics, Nature, Vol. 424, 824830, Aug. 14, 2003.