• Open Access

Near-Complete Photon Spin Selectivity in a Metasurface of Anisotropic Plasmonic Antennas

Robin Ogier, Yurui Fang, Mikael Käll, and Mikael Svedendahl
Phys. Rev. X 5, 041019 – Published 4 November 2015
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Abstract

Simple chiroptically active metamaterials are difficult to realize in practice but could pave the way for a range of important applications, such as sensitive optical biosensors, asymmetric catalysis, and novel polarization manipulation devices. We show that a metasurface based on a random arrangement of anisotropic but aligned gold nanoparticles can exhibit an almost perfect selectivity towards incident photon spin for evanescent excitation with visible to near-infrared light. The experimentally attained reflection contrast between left- and right-handed circularly polarized light peaks at 90%, in excellent agreement with analytical theory. These results are important for the development of future photonic and plasmonic polarization-based technologies.

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  • Received 30 March 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.5.041019

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Robin Ogier, Yurui Fang, Mikael Käll*, and Mikael Svedendahl

  • Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden

  • *mikael.kall@chalmers.se
  • mikael.svedendahl@chalmers.se

Popular Summary

A chiroptically active material preferentially interacts with either left- or right-handed circularly polarized light. Although chiroptical effects are weak in natural materials, they are critically important in the detection of molecules with structures that do not superimpose with their mirror image (i.e., so-called enantiomers such as DNA). Accordingly, many researchers have attempted to develop artificial nanostructures and materials with enhanced optical activity. However, a simple-to-fabricate and effective chiroptical metasurface for the visible-to-near-infrared spectral range has not yet been reported. In this work, we show that strong chiroptical effects can be achieved in an achiral metasurface composed of oriented elongated plasmonic gold nanoparticles.

We employ a single layer of gold nanoparticles, each roughly 175 nm long and 75 nm wide, fabricated on a glass surface. We study, both experimentally and analytically, how a beam of light is absorbed and reflected from this layer based on its polarization state. We find that chiroptical effects are most pronounced when the surface is illuminated under total internal reflection conditions, in which case the extinction contrast between left- and right-handed light can reach 90% for certain combinations of nanoparticle orientations and illumination angles.

We expect that our findings will be useful for a range of novel photon-spin selective devices for optical communication technologies and biophotonics.

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Vol. 5, Iss. 4 — October - December 2015

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