PLASMONICS
1. INTRODUCTION
Plasma is a medium with equal concentration of positive and negative charges, of
which at least one charge type is mobile. With the increasing quest for transporting large
amounts of data at a fast speed along with miniaturization both electronics and photonics are
facing limitations. In physics, the plasmon is the quasiparticle resulting from the quantization
of plasma oscillations just as photons and phonons are quantization’s of light and sound
waves, respectively. Thus, plasmons are collective oscillations of the free electron gas
density, often at optical frequencies. They can also couple with a photon to create a third
quasiparticle called a plasma polariton Scientists are now more inclined from Photonics to
Plasmonic. It opens the new era in optical communication.
Plasmonic refers to the investigation, development and applications of enhanced
electromagnetic properties of metallic nanostructures. The term plasmonics is derived from
plasmons, which are the quanta associated with longitudinal waves propagating in matter
through the collective motion of large numbers of electrons. These plasmons travel at the
speed of light and are created when light hits a metal at a particular angle, causing waves to
propagate through electrons near the surface. Plasmonics exploits nanoscale structural
transformations which are supported by rigorous numerical analysis.
Plasma is a medium with equal concentration of positive and negative charges, of
which at least one charge type is mobile. In a solid, the negative charges of the conduction
electrons (i.e., electron gas) are balanced by an equal concentration of positive charge of the
ion cores. A plasma oscillation in a metal is a collective longitudinal excitation of the
conduction electron gas against a background of fixed positive ions with a plasma frequency.
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Those plasmons that are confined to surfaces and which interact strongly with light are
known as surface plasmons. Surface plasmons are dense waves of electrons, bunches of
electrons passing a point regularly—along the surface of a metal. Plasmons have the same
frequencies and electromagnetic fields as light, but their sub wave-length size means that
they take up less space. Plasmonics, then, is the technology of transmitting these light-like
waves along nanoscale wires. With every wave, we can, in principle, carry information.
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2. WHAT IS PLASMONICS?
Definition: A technology that squeezes electromagnetic waves into minuscule structures
may yield a new generation of superfast computer chips and ultrasensitive molecular
detectors.
Mechanism: Light beam striking a metal surface generates plasmons, electron density
waves that can carry huge amounts of data. If focused on a surface etched with a circular
groove the beam produces concentric waves organizing electrons into high & low density
rings.
Difference between Plasma and Plasmon:
PLASMA: Plasma is a medium with equal concentration of positive and negative charges,
of which at least one charge type is mobilePLASMON: The plasmon is the quasiparticle
resulting from the quantization of plasma oscillations, often at optical frequencies.
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3. WHY A NEW TECHNOLOGY?
Optical fibers now span the globe, guiding light signals that convey voluminous
streams of voice communications and vast amounts of data. This gargantuan capacity has led
some researchers to prophesy that photonic devices--which channel and manipulate visible light
and other electromagnetic waves--could someday replace electronic circuits in microprocessors
and other computer chips. Unfortunately, the size and performance of photonic devices are
constrained by the diffraction limit; because of interference between closely spaced light waves,
the width of an optical fiber carrying them must be at least half the light's wavelength inside the
material. For chip-based optical signals, which will most likely employ near-infrared
wavelengths of about 1,500 nanometers (billionths of a meter), the minimum width is much
larger than the smallest electronic devices currently in use; some transistors in silicon integrated
circuits, for instance, have features smaller than 100 nanometers. Recently, however, scientists
have been working on a new technique for transmitting optical signals through minuscule
nanoscale structures. In the 1980s researchers experimentally confirmed that directing light
waves at the interface between a metal and a dielectric (a nonconductive material such as air or
glass) can, under the right circumstances, induce a resonant interaction between the waves and
the mobile electrons at the surface of the metal. (In a conductive metal, the electrons are not
strongly attached to individual atoms or molecules.) In other words, the oscillations of electrons
at the surface match those of the electromagnetic field outside the metal. The result is the
generation of surface plasmons--density waves of electrons that propagate along the interface
like the ripples that spread across the surface of a pond after you throw a stone into the water.
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4. UNIQUE PROPERTIES OF SURFACE PLASMONS
Surface plasmons are those plasmons that are confined to surfaces and that interact strongly
with light resulting in polaritons. They occur at the interface of a vacuum or material with a
positive dielectric constant with that of a negative dielectric constant (usually a metal or
doped dielectric). They play a role in Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy in explaining
anomalies in diffraction from metal gratings, among other things.Surface Plasmon
Resonance is used by biochemists to study the mechanisms and kinetics of ligands binding
to receptors (i.e. a substrate binding to an enzyme).
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPP): electro-magnetic wave confined at
the metal surface overcome diffraction limit: nano-optical components ―light on a wire‖
Strongly enhanced local fields: resonant build-up, lightning-rod effect & non-linear optical
effects and sensors.
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5. MOTIVATION AND CURRENT CHALLENGES
An effort is currently being made to integrate plasmonic with electric circuits, or in an
electric circuit analog, to combine the size efficiency of electronics with the data capacity
of photonic integrated circuits (PIC).] While gate lengths of CMOS nodes used for electrical
circuits are ever decreasing, the size of conventional PICs is limited by diffraction, thus
constituting a barrier for further integration. Plasmonics could bridge this size mismatch
between electronic and photonic components. At the same time, photonics and plasmonics
can complement each other, since, under the right conditions, optical signals can be
converted to SPPs and vice versa.
One of the biggest issues in making plasmonic circuits a feasible reality is the short
propagation length of surface plasmons. Typically, surface plasmons travel distances only
on the scale of millimetres before damping diminishes the signal. This is largely due to ohmic
losses, which become increasingly important the deeper the electric field penetrates into the
metal. Researchers are attempting to reduce losses in surface plasmon propagation by
examining a variety of materials, geometries, the frequency and their respective
properties. New promising low-loss plasmonic materials include metal oxides and nitrides as
well as graphene.Key to more design freedom are improved fabrication techniques that can
further contribute to reduced losses by reduced surface roughness.
Another foreseeable barrier plasmonic circuits will have to overcome is heat; heat in a
plasmonic circuit may or may not exceed the heat generated by complex electronic circuits. It
has recently been proposed to reduce heating in plasmonic networks by designing them to
support trapped optical vortices, which circulate light powerflow through the inter-particle
gaps thus reducing absorption and Ohmic heating, In addition to heat, it is also difficult to
change the direction of a plasmonic signal in a circuit without significantly reducing its
amplitude and propagation length.[ One clever solution to the issue of bending the direction
of propagation is the use of Bragg mirrors to angle the signal in a particular direction, or even
to function as splitters of the signal. Finally, emerging applications of plasmonics for thermal
emission manipulation and heat-assisted magnetic recording leverage Ohmic losses in metals
to obtain devices with new enhanced functionalities.
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6. FEATURES OF PLASMONICS
Over the past decade investigators have found that by creatively designing the metal
dielectric interface they can generate surface plasmons with the same frequency as the
outside electromagnetic waves but with a much shorter wavelength. This phenomenon could
allow the plasmons to travel along nanoscale wires called interconnects, carrying
information from one part of a microprocessor to another. Plasmonic interconnects would
be a great boon for chip designers, who have been able to develop ever smaller and faster
transistors but have had a harder time building minute electronic circuits that can move data
quickly across the chip. The term "plasmonics" came into existence in 2000 from the word
„plasmon‟, sensing that research in this area could lead to an entirely new class of devices.
Ultimately it may be possible to employ plasmonic components in a wide variety of
instruments, using them to improve the resolution of microscopes, the efficiency of light-
emitting diodes (LEDs) and the sensitivity of chemical and biological detectors. Scientists
are also considering medical applications, designing tiny particles that could use plasmon
resonance absorption to kill cancerous tissues, for example. And some researchers have even
theorized that certain plasmonic materials could alter the electromagnetic field around an
object to such an extent that it would become invisible. Although not all these potential
applications may prove feasible, investigators are eagerly studying plasmonics because the
new field promises to literally shine a light on the mysteries of the nanoworld.
For millennia, alchemists and glassmakers have unwittingly taken advantage of
plasmonic effects when they created stained-glass windows and colorful goblets that
incorporated small metallic particles in the glass. The most notable example is the Lycurgus
cup, a Roman goblet dating from the fourth century A.D. and now held in the British
Museum. Because of plasmonic excitation of electrons in the metallic particles suspended
within the glass matrix, the cup absorbs and scatters blue and green light--the relatively short
wavelengths of the visible spectrum. When viewed in reflected light, the plasmonic
scattering gives the cup a greenish hue, but if a white light source is placed within the goblet,
the glass appears red because it transmits only the longer wavelengths and absorbs the
shorter ones. The field of plasmonics received another boost with the discovery of novel
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"metamaterials"--materials inwhich electron oscillations can result in astounding optical
properties. Two new classes of tools have also accelerated progress in plasmonics: recent
increases in computational power have enabled investigators to accurately simulate the
complex electromagnetic fields generated by plasmonic effects, and novel methods for
constructing nanoscale structures have made it possible to build and test ultrasmall
plasmonic devices and circuits. At first glance, the use of metallic structures to transmit light
signals seems impractical, because metals are known for high optical losses. The electrons
oscillating in the electromagnetic field collide with the surrounding lattice of atoms, rapidly
dissipating the field's energy. But the plasmon losses are lower at the interface between a
thin metal film and a dielectric than inside the bulk of a metal because the field spreads into
the nonconductive material, where there are no free electrons to oscillate and hence no
energy-dissipating collisions. This property naturally confines plasmons to the metallic
surface abutting the dielectric; in a sandwich with dielectric and metal layers, for example,
the surface plasmons propagate only in the thin plane at the interface. Because these planar
plasmonic structures act as waveguides, shepherding the electromagnetic waves along the
metal-dielectric boundary, they could be useful in routing signals on a chip. Although an
optical signal suffers more loss in a metal than in a dielectric such as glass, a plasmon can
travel in a thin-film metal waveguide for several centimeters before dying out. The
propagation length can be maximized if the waveguide employs an asymmetric mode, which
pushes a greater portion of the electromagnetic energy away from the guiding metal film
and into the surrounding dielectric, thereby lowering loss. Because the electromagnetic
fields at the top and bottom surfaces of the metal film interact with each other, the
frequencies and wavelengths of the plasmons can be adjusted by changing the thickness of
the film.
To generate plasmons that can propagate through nanoscale wires, researchers have
explored more complex waveguide geometries that can shrink the wavelength of the signal
by squeezing it into a narrow space.
Fortunately, the absorption losses can be minimized by turning the plasmonic
waveguides inside out, putting the dielectric at the core and surrounding it with metal. In
this device, called a plasmonic slot waveguide, adjusting the thickness of the dielectric core
changes the wavelength of the plasmons. It is shown that plasmonic slot waveguides are
capable of transmitting a signal as far as tens of microns.
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Plasmonics can thus generate signals in the soft x-ray range of wavelengths (between 10
and 100 nanometers) by exciting materials with visible light. The wavelength can be
reduced by more than a factor of 10 relative to its free-space value, and yet the frequency
of the signal remains the same. (The fundamental relation between the two--frequency
wavelength equals the speed of light--is preserved because the electromagnetic waves slow
as they travel along the metal-dielectric interface.) This striking ability to shrink the
wavelength opens the path to nanoscale plasmonic structures that could replace purely
electronic circuits containing wires and transistors. Just as lithography is now used to
imprint circuit patterns on silicon chips, a similar process could mass produce minuscule
plasmonic devices with arrays of narrow dielectric stripes and gaps. These arrays would
guide the waves of positive and negative charge on the metal surface; the alternating charge
densities would be very much akin to the alternating current traveling along an ordinary
wire. But because the frequency of an optical signal is so much higher than that of an
electrical one--more than 400,000 gigahertz versus 60 hertz--the plasmonic circuit would
be able to carry much more data. Moreover, because electrical charge does not travel from
one end of a plasmonic circuit to another--the electrons bunch together and spread apart
rather than streaming in a single direction the device is not subject to resistance and
capacitance effects that limit the data-carrying capacity of integrated circuits with electrical
interconnects.
Plasmonic circuits would be even faster and more useful if researchers could
devise a "plasmonster" switch--a three-terminal plasmonic device with transistor-like
properties.
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7. APPLICATIONS
PLASMONIC LED
Plasmonic materials may also revolutionize the lighting industry by making LEDs bright
enough to compete with incandescent bulbs. Beginning in the 1980s, researchers recognized
that the plasmonic enhancement of the electric field at the metal-dielectric boundary could
increase the emission rate of luminescent dyes placed near the metal's surface. More recently,
it has become evident that this type of field enhancement can also dramatically raise the
emission rates of Quantum dots and quantum wells--tiny semiconductor structures that
absorb and emit light--thus increasing the efficiency and brightness of solid-state LEDs. It
is demonstrated that coating the surface of a gallium nitride LED with dense arrays of
plasmonic nanoparticles (made of silver, gold or aluminum) could increase the intensity of
the emitted light 14-fold. Furthermore, plasmonic nanoparticles may enable researchers to
develop LEDs made of silicon. Such devices, which would be much cheaper than
conventional LEDs composed of gallium nitride or gallium arsenide, are currently held back
by their low rates of light emission . It is found that coupling silver or gold plasmonic
nanostructures to silicon quantum-dot arrays could boost their light emission by about 10
times. Moreover, it is possible to tune the frequency of the enhanced emissions by adjusting
the dimensions of the nanoparticle. Careful tuning of the plasmonic resonance frequency and
precise control of the separation between the metallic particles and the semiconductor
materials may enable us to increase radiative rates more than 100-fold, allowing silicon
LEDs to shine just as brightly as traditional devices.
INVISIBILITY CLOAKS
The most fascinating potential application of plasmonics would be the invention of an
invisibility cloak. A material's refractive index is the ratio of the speed of light in a vacuum to
the speed of light in the material. Exciting a plasmonic structure with radiation that is close to
the structure's resonant frequency can make its refractive index equal to air's, meaning that it
would neither bend nor reflect light. The structure would absorb light, but if it were laminated
with a material that produces optical gain- -amplifying the transmitted signal just as the resonator
in a SPASER would--the increase in intensity would offset the absorption losses. The structure
would become invisible, at least to radiation in a selected range of frequencies. A true invisibility
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cloak, however, must be able to hide anything within the structure and work.for all frequencies
of visible light. It is shown that a shell of metamaterials can reroute the electromagnetic waves
traveling through it, diverting them around a spherical region within.
SPASER - PLASMONIC ANALOG OF LASER
The acronym SPASER stands for Surface Plasmon Amplification of Stimulated Emission of
Radiation. It can be fabricated using semiconductor quantum dots and metal particles.
Radiative energy from the quantum dots would be transformed into plasmons, which would
then be amplified in a plasmonic resonator. Because the plasmons generated by a SPASER
would be much more tightly localized than a conventional laser beam, the device could
operate at very low power and selectively excite very small objects. As a result, SPASERs
could make spectroscopy more sensitive and pave the way for hazardous-materials detectors
that could identify minute amounts of chemicals or viruses.
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PLASMONICS
PLASMONSTER - A FASTER CHIP
Slot waveguides could significantly boost the speed of computer chips by rapidly
funnelling large amounts of data to the circuits that perform logical operations. The
Plasmonsters are composed of slot waveguides that measure 100 nm across at their broadest
points and only 20 nm across at the intersection.
PLASMONIC NANOSHELL THERAPY
The potential uses of plasmonic devices go far beyond computing. Nanoshell that consists of
a thin layer of gold--typically about 10 nanometers thick--deposited around the entire
surface of a silica particle about 100 nanometers across. Exposure to electromagnetic waves
generates electron oscillations in the gold shell; because of the coupling interaction between
the fields on the shell's inner and outer surfaces, varying the size of the particle and the
thickness of the gold layer changes the wavelength at which the particle resonantly absorbs
energy. In this way, investigators can design the nanoshells to selectively absorb
wavelengths as short as a few hundred nanometers (the blue end of the visible spectrum) or
as long as nearly 10 micrometers (the near infrared). This phenomenon has turned nanoshells
into a promising tool for cancer treatment. Halas, working with her Rice colleague Jennifer
West, injected plasmonic nanoshells into the bloodstream of mice with cancerous tumors
and found that the particles were nontoxic. What is more, the nanoshells tended to embed
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themselves in the rodents' cancerous tissues rather than the healthy ones because more blood
was circulated to the fast-growing tumors. The nanoshells can also be attached to antibodies
to ensure that they target cancers. Fortunately, human and animal tissues are transparent to
radiation at certain infrared wavelengths. When the researchers directed near-infrared laser
light through the mice's skin and at the tumors, the resonant absorption of energy in the
embedded nanoshells raised the temperature of the cancerous tissues from about 37 degrees
Celsius to about 45 degrees C.
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8. CONCLUSION
The ideas of Plasmonics illustrate the rich array of optical properties that inspire researchers
in this field. By studying the elaborate interplay between electromagnetic waves and free
electrons, investigators have identified new possibilities for transmitting data in our
integrated circuits, illuminating our homes and fighting cancer. Further exploration of these
intriguing plasmonic phenomena may yield even more exciting discoveries and inventions
interactions between electromagnetic waves and matter. That includes laser-plasma and
laser-solid interactions, nano-photonics, and plasmonics.
The future challenges may be
(a) developing high-gradient accelerators of charged particles (table-top colliders!), and
(b) designing novel nanostructures that will contribute to nanoscale optical imaging and
spectroscopy of chemicals and biomolecules.
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