CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Introduction Currently, communication systems are based on either electronics or photonics. However, with the quest for transporting huge amounts of data at a high speed along with miniaturisation, both these technologiesare facing limitations. Due to their mismatched capacities and sizes, it is very difficult to cobble them to get a high bitrate with miniaturisation. So researchers are pioneering anew technology called plasmonics. Due to its frequency being approximately equal to that of light and abilityto interface with similar size electronic components, plasmonics can act as abridge between photonics and electronics for communication.

Fig. 1.1 Practical visualization of Plasmons

The term plasmonics is derived from plasmons (Fig. 1.1)quanta associated with collective excitation of free electrons in metals. Plasmons are a physics phenomenon based on the optical properties of metals; they are represented by the energy associated with charge density waves propagating in matter through the motions of large number of electrons. When light falls on a metal, owing to the electric field component of light, the conduction electron cloud of the metal shifts and results in the deficiency of negative charge on the opposite side. Due to coulomb attraction, the electron cloud rebounce into its original position, but owing to inertia it gets overshot resulting in a oscillation frequency called surface plasmon resonance frequency, which is equal to the frequency of irradiated light as shown in the fig 2. Electrons, in a metal, screen an electric field. Light of frequency

below the plasma frequency is reflected. Surface plasmons as shown in fig3are associated with surface charge oscillations. These oscillations are also known as plasma oscillations.These are rapid oscillations of the electron density in conducting media such as plasmas or metals.Plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of particle are ionised. Heating a gas may ionise its molecules or atoms,thus turning into plasma,which contain charged particles, positive ions and negative electrons.The presence of a non-negligible no.of charge carriers makes the plasma electrically conductive so that it responds strongly to electromagnetic fields.The frequency of plasma oscillations is almost equal to that of light,optical frequency of todays electronic microprocessors.So light can be used to excite them on the surface of a material in localised regime. The energy required to receive and send a surface plasmon pulse can be less than for electric charging of a metallic wire. This could allow plasmons to travel along nanoscale wires (called interconnects) carrying information from one part of a microprocessor to

Fig. 1.2 Electron Cloud Shifting

another with a high bitrate.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.Surface plasmons can be excited on a flat nano-film, nanostrip or other shaped nanoparticles such as nanosphere, nanorod, nanocube and nanostar.When nanoparticles are used to excite surface plasmons by light, these are known as localised surface plasmons.Silver and gold are of particular interest due to their high field enhancement and resonance wavelength lying in the visible spectral regime. The speed of these surface

plasmons is almost equal to that of light with wavelength of the order of tens of nanometres.

Fig. 1.3 Surface Plasmons

1.2 Definition A technology that squeezes electromagnetic waves into minuscule structures may yield a new generation of superfast computer chips and ultrasensitive molecular detectors. 1.2.1 Mechanism Light beam striking a metal surface generates plasmons, electron density waves that can carry huge amounts of data. If focused on surface etched with circular groove the beam produces concentric waves organizing electrons into high & low density rings. 1.3 Limitations of Present Modes Presently, electronics plays an important role in communication. In laboratories, though, photonics has started replacing electronics where a high data transfer rate is required. Electronics deals with the flow of charge (electrons). When the frequency of an electronic pulse increases, the electronic device becomes hot and wires become very loose. Hence by the principle of the higher the frequency,the higher the data transfer rate, a huge amount of data cannot be transferred.On the other hand, when the size of an electronic wire reduces, its resistance (inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area of the wire) increases but the capacitance remains almost the same. This leads to time delay effects. In photonics, optical fibres (cylindricaldielectric/non-conducting waveguides) are used. These transmit light along their axis by the process of total internal reflection. The fibre

consists of a core surrounded by a cladding layer, both of which are made of dielectric materials. To confine the optical signal in the core, the refractive index of the core must be greater than of the cladding. The lateral confinement size of the optical cable is approximately half the wavelength of the light used signal passing through it and is called diffraction limit.Although, thedata transportation rate is high in photonics,owing to the diffraction limit, the size of optical fibre is in the order of hundreds of nanometres much larger than the present-day nano-electronic devices.In the increasing quest for transporting huge amount of data at high speed along with miniaturization, both electronics and photonics are facing limitations. It is difficult to cobble them to obtain a high bit rate along with miniaturization owing to their mismatched capacities and sizes. Researchers are promoting plasmonics as the future of wave communication.The confinement of light wave on the dimensions of metal below the diffraction limit forms a major part of the application.

CHAPTER 2 PLASMONICS-A NEW TECHNOLOGY

2.1 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 chipbased 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. 2.2 Plasmonics can Bridge Microscale Photonics and Nanoscale Electronics Based on the data presented above, it seems that the propagation lengths for plasmonic waveguides are too short to propagate SPPs with high confinement over the length of an entire chip (~1 cm). Although the manufacturability of long-range SPP waveguides may well be straightforward within a CMOS foundry, it is unlikely that such waveguides will be able to compete with well-established, low-loss,high-confinement Si, Si3N4, or other dielectric waveguides.However, it is possible to create new capabilities by capitalizing on an additional strongpoint of metallic nanostructures. Metal nanostructureshave a unique

ability to concentrate light into nanoscale volumes. This capability has been employed to enhance a diversity of nonlinear optical phenomena. For example,surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is widely used in the field of biology. This technique makes use of the enhanced electromagnetic fields near metallic nanostructures to study the structure and composition of organic and biological materials. Enhancement factors on the order of 100 have been predicted and observed for spherical particles. Even greater enhancements can be obtained near carefully engineered metal optical antenna structures that basically resemble scaled-down versions of acar antenna. Recently, such antennas have even enabled single molecule studies by SERS and white-light supercontinuum generation.

Fig. 2.1 Nanoscale antenna

Despite the numerous studies on antennas in the microwaveandoptical regimes, their application to solve current issues in chip-scaleinterconnection has remained largely unexplored. The fieldconcentrating abilities of optical antennas may serve to bridge thelarge gap between microscale dielectric photonic devices and nanoscale electronics (Fig.4). This diagram shows a detail of a chip on which optical signals are routed through conventional dielectric optical waveguides. The mode size of such waveguides is typically one or two orders of magnitude larger than the underlying CMOS electronics. An antenna can be used to concentrate the electromagnetic signals from the waveguide mode into a deep subwavelength metal/insulator/metal waveguide and inject it into a nanoscale

photodetector. The small size of the detector ensures a small capacitance, low-noise, and high-speed operation. By using metallic nanostructures as a bridge between photonics and electronics, we play to the strengths of metallic anostructures(concentrating fields and subwavelength guiding),dielectric waveguides (low-loss information transport), and nanoscale electronic components (high-speed information processing).

CHAPTER 3 FEATURES
3.1 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, vestigators 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 "metamaterials"-- materials in which 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 mpractical, because metals are known for high optical losses. The elect rons oscillating in the electromagnetic field collide with the surrounding lattice of atoms, rapidly dissipating thefield'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 p lasmonic structures act as wave guides, 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 p lasmons can be adjusted by changing the thickness of the film. To generate plasmons that can propagate through nanoscale wires, researchers have explored more complex wave guide 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 plasmon slot waveguide, adjusting the thickness o f the dielectric core

changes the wavelength of the plasmons. It is shown that plasmon slot waveguides are capable of transmitting a signal as far as tens of microns. 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 times 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 datacarrying 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.

CHAPTER 4 COMPONENTS OF PLASMONICS

4.1 Components There are two main components of plasmonics: (i) surface plasmon (SP) polaritons and

(ii)

localized surface plasmons (LSPs)

SPs are associated with surface charge oscillation having frequency almost equal to light. The energy required to receive and send a SP pulse can be less than that needed for the electric charging of a metallic wire. This could allow the plasmons to travel along nanoscale wires (called interconnects) to carrying information from one part of a microprocessor to another with high bit rate. Plasmonic interconnects would be a great boom for chip designers, who have been able to develop ever smaller and faster transistors that can move data quickly across the chip. Plasmon-based waveguides are not only a mode by which light can be guided on nanoscales, but also promise a path for chip scale device integration. Here, we provide a qualitative discussion on the factors that manage plasmon excitation by different methods along with a brief description on some theoretical aspects of plasmonics. The article ends with aconcise dialogue on promising applications of plasmonics in communication. It is hopeful that this will inspire detailed study of plasmonic devices in the field of communication.

Fig. 4.1 Localized surface plasmons

4.2 Surface Plasmon Excitation Plasmonic structures can exert huge control over light waves at the nanoscale. As a result, energy carried by plasmons allow for light localization in ultra-small volumes, far beyond the diffraction limit.To generate the SPs, it is necessary to excite the metal dielectric interfaceas shown in the fig. 6which the dielectric constantof the metal is a function of frequency and possesses a negative real part.The plasmon losses are lower at the interface

between a thin metal film and a dielectric than inside the bulk of the metal film because the field spreads into the nonconductive materials,where there are no free electrons to oscillate,and hence no energy dissipation owing to collisions. This property naturally confines plasmons to the metallic surface neighbouring the dielectric; in a sandwich with dielectric and metal layers.

Fig. 4.2 Surface Plasmon Excitation

CHAPTER 5 SURFACE PLASMON RESONANCE

5.1 Introduction to Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is the resonant, collective oscillation of valence electrons[citation needed] in a solid stimulated by incident light. The resonance condition is established when the frequency of light photons matches the natural frequency of surface

electrons oscillating against the restoring force of positive nuclei. SPR in nanometer-sized structures is called localized surface plasmon resonance. SPR is the basis of many standard tools for measuring adsorption of material onto planar metal (typically gold and silver) surfaces or onto the surface of metal nanoparticles. It is the fundamental principle behind many color-based biosensor applications and different labon-a-chip sensors.

Fig 5.1 SPR

5.2 Explanation Surface plasmon polaritons are surface electromagnetic waves that propagate in a direction parallel to the metal/dielectric (or metal/vacuum) interface. Since the wave is on the boundary of the metal and the external medium (air or water for example), these oscillations are very sensitive to any change of this boundary, such as the adsorption of molecules to the metal surface. To describe the existence and properties of surface plasmon polaritons, one can choose from various models (quantum theory, Drude model, etc.). The simplest way to approach the problem is to treat each material as a homogeneous continuum, described by a frequency-dependent relative permittivity between the external medium and the surface. This quantity, hereafter referred to as the materials' "dielectric constant," is complex permittivity. In order for the terms which describe the electronic surface plasmons to exist,

the real part of the dielectric constant of the metal must be negative and its magnitude must be greater than that of the dielectric. This condition is met in the IR-visible wavelength region for air/metal and water/metal interfaces (where the real dielectric constant of a metal is negative and that of air or water is positive). LSPRs (Localized SPRs) are collective electron charge oscillations in metallic nanoparticles that are excited by light. They exhibit enhanced near-field amplitude at the resonance wavelength. This field is highly localized at the nanoparticle and decays rapidly away from the nanoparticle/dieletric interface into the dielectric background, though farfield scattering by the particle is also enhanced by the resonance. Light intensity enhancement is a very important aspect of LSPRs and localization means the LSPR has very high spatial resolution (subwavelength), limited only by the size of nanoparticles. Because of the enhanced field amplitude, effects that depend on the amplitude such as magneto-optical effect are also enhanced by LSPRs. 5.3 Realization

Fig 5.3 Otto configuration

Fig 5.3 Kretschmann configuration

In order to excite surface plasmons in a resonant manner, one can use an electron or light beam (visible and infrared are typical). The incoming beam has to match its momentum to that of the plasmon. In the case of p-polarized light (polarization occurs parallel to the plane of incidence), this is possible by passing the light through a block of glass to increase

the wavenumber (and the momentum), and achieve the resonance at a given wavelength and angle. S-polarized light (polarization occurs perpendicular to the plane of incidence) cannot excite electronic surface plasmons. Electronic and magnetic surface plasmons obey the following dispersion relation:

where is the dielectric constant, and glass block, 2: the metal film).

is the magnetic permeability of the material (1: the

Typical metals that support surface plasmons are silver and gold, but metals such as copper, titanium or chromium have also been used. When using light to excite SP waves, there are two configurations which are well known. In the Otto setup, the light illuminates the wall of a glass block, typically a prism, and is totally internally reflected. A thin metal film (for example gold) is positioned close enough to the prism wall so that an evanescent wave can interact with the plasma waves on the surface and hence excite the plasmons. In the Kretschmann configuration, the metal film is evaporated onto the glass block. The light again illuminates the glass block, and an evanescent wave penetrates through the metal film. The plasmons are excited at the outer side of the film. This configuration is used in most practical applications.

5.4 SPR emission When the surface plasmon wave interacts with a local particle or irregularity, such as a rough surface, part of the energy can be re-emitted as light. This emitted light can be detected behind the metal film from various directions. 5.5 Examples 5.5.1 Layer-by-layer self-assembly SPR curves measured during the adsorption of a polyelectrolyte and then a clay mineral self-assembled film onto a thin (ca. 38 nanometers) gold sensor. One of the first common applications of surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy was the measurement of the thickness (and refractive index) of adsorbed self-assembled nanofilms

on gold substrates. The resonance curves shift to higher angles as the thickness of the adsorbed film increases. This example is a 'static SPR' measurement. When higher speed observation is desired, one can select an angle right below the resonance point (the angle of minimum reflectance), and measure the reflectivity changes at that point. This is the so called 'dynamic SPR' measurement. The interpretation of the data assumes that the structure of the film does not change significantly during the measurement.

Fig 5.4 SPR curves measured during the adsorption of a polyelectrolyte and then a clay mineral self-assembled film onto a thin

Fig 5.5 Association and dissociation signal

5.5.2 Binding constant determination

Fig 5.6 Example of output from Biacore

When the affinity of two ligands has to be determined, the binding constant must be determined. It is the equilibrium value for the product quotient. This value can also be found using the dynamical SPR parameters and, as in any chemical reaction, it is the association rate divided by the dissociation rate. For this, a so-called bait ligand is immobilized on the dextran surface of the SPR crystal. Through a microflow system, a solution with the prey analyte is injected over the bait layer. As the prey analyte binds the bait ligand, an increase in SPR signal (expressed in response units, RU) is observed. After desired association time, a solution without the prey analyte (usually the buffer) is injected on the microfluidics that dissociates the bound complex between bait ligand and prey analyte. Now as the prey analyte dissociates from the bait ligand, a decrease in SPR signal (expressed in resonance units, RU) is observed. From these association ('on rate', ka) and dissociation rates ('off rate', kd), the equilibrium dissociation constant ('binding constant', KD) can be calculated. The actual SPR signal can be explained by the electromagnetic 'coupling' of the incident light with the surface plasmon of the gold layer. This plasmon can be influenced by the layer just a few nanometer across the goldsolution interface i.e. the bait protein and possibly the prey protein. Binding makes the reflection angle change.

5.6 Magnetic plasmon resonance Recently, there has been an interest in magnetic surface plasmons. These require materials with large negative magnetic permeability, a property that has only recently been made available with the construction of metamaterials.

CHAPTER 6 PLASMONICS: A MATHEMATICAL APPROACH

6.1 Maxwells equations Since plasmons are the quantization of classical plasma oscillations, most of their properties can be derived directly from Maxwell's Equations.

Fig 6.1 Dispersion relation

Fig 5.2 Losses relation

Fig 6.3 SERS

Fig 6.4 SPP Focus

CHAPTER 7 COMMUNICATION WITH PLASMONICS

7.1 Communication Plasmonic structures can exert huge control over electromagnetic wavesat the nanoscale. As a result, energycarried by plasmons allows for lightlocalisation in ultra small volumes far beyond the diffraction limit of light.To generate surface plasmons, it isnecessary to excite the metal-dielectricinterface in which the dielectric constantof the metal is a function of frequencyand negative. At the nanoscale,the electromagnetic (EM) field of the EM wave displays the electron cloud due to its well coupling, which is not possible in the case of bulk matter.Hence plasmonics is frequently associated with nanotechnology.Investigators have found that by creatively designing the metaldielectric interface, they can generate surface plasmons with the same frequency as the electromagnetic wave but with much smaller wavelength.This phenomenon could allow plasmons to travel along nanoscale wirescalled interconnects in order to carry information from one part of the microprocessor to another. Fig 6.1 shows different operating speed of operating and processing system.

Fig. 7.1 Operating speed of data transporting and processing system

7.1.1 Method Plasmonic waveguides are gaining much attention owing to their ability to operate in various parts of the spectrum-ranging from visible to infrared region.A plasmon could travel as far as several micrometres in the slot waveguide (dielectric core with metallic cladding)far enough to convey a signal from one part of a chip to another. The plasmon slot waveguide squeezes the optical signal, shrinking its wavelength. Metallic nanowires can provide lateral confinement of the mode below the diffraction limit. Nanowires have larger attenuation than planer films but light transport over a distance of several microns has been demonstrated.A chain of differently-shaped nanoparticles(such as spheres and rods) can be used to transport EM waves from one nanoparticle to another via the nearfield electrodynamic interaction between them. If the second particle is situated in the near field of theother and so on along the chain, EM energy can be propagated within the lateral size confinement less than the diffraction limit. In a chain of closelyspaced nanostructures, the propagation distance depends upon the shape and nature of materials, separation between them as well as the dielectric constant of the host medium.

Fig. 7.2 Graph between Critical dimension & operating speed

Optical regimes-applicable size and speed scale-for plasmonic and other devices. Plasmocom team took a novel approach, developing what they called dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides (DLSPPW) as shown in fig 7.2. By patterning a layer of various polymer (polymethyl methacrylate) dielectic onto gold film supported by a glass substrate, they were able to achieve waveguides that were only 500 nanometres in size while extending the signal propagation. Using this approach, the researchers built a variety of plasmonic devices, including lowloss S bends, Y-splitters and a waveguide ring resonator, a crucial part of the add-drop multiplexers (ADM) in optical networks that combine and separate several streams of data into a single signal and vice versa.

Fig. 7.3 Dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides

7.2 Imaging In order to study the propagation of SPPs, a photon scanning tunneling microscope was constructed (PSTM) by modifying a commercially available scanning near-field optical microscope. PSTMs are the tool of choice for characterizing SPP propagation along extended films as wellas metal stripe waveguide. Figure shows how a microscope objective at the heart of our PSTM can be used to focus a laser beam onto a metal film at a welldefined angle and thereby launch a SPP along the top metal surface

Fig. 6.4 Schematic representation of the operation of a PSTM

A sharp, metal-coated pyramidal tip (Figure 10b and 10c) is used to tap into the guided SPP wave locally and scatter light toward a far-field detector. These particular tips have a nanoscale aperture at the top of the pyramid through which light can be collected. The scattered light is then detected with a photomultiplier tube. The signal provides a measure of the local light intensity right underneath the tip and, by scanning the tip over the metal surface, the propagation of SPPs can be imaged The operation of the PSTM can be illustrated by investigating the propagation of SPPs on a patterned Au film (Figure 10d). Here, a focused ion beam (FIB) was used to define a series of parallel grooves, which serve as a Bragg grating to reflect SPP waves. Figure (10e) shows a PSTM image of a SPP wave excited with a 780 nm wavelength laser and directed toward the Bragg grating. The back reflection of the SPP from the grating results in the standing wave interference pattern observed in the image. From this type of experiment the wavelength of SPPs can be determined in a straightforward manner and compared to theory.

CHAPTER 8 APPLICATIONS
8.1 Plasmonic LED Plasmonic materials may also revolutionize the lighting industr y 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. 8.2 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. 8.3 Plasmonster - a faster Chip Slot waveguides could significantly boost the speed of computer chips by rapidly funneling large amounts of data to the circuits that perform logical operations. The Plasmonsters are composed of slot waveguides that measure 100nm across at their broadest points and only 20nm across at the intersection. 8.4 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 cloak, however, must be able to hide anything within the structure and work for all frequencies of visible light. It is showed that a shell of metamaterials can reroute the electromagnetic waves traveling through it, diverting them around a spherical region within. 8.5 Plasmonic nanocell 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 microns (the near infrared). This phenomenon has turned nanoshells into a promising tool for cancer treatment. Ha las, 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 themselves in the rodents' cancero us tissues rather than the healthy ones because more blood was circulated to the fastgrowing 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. The photothermal heating killed the cancer cells while leaving the surrounding healthy tissue unharmed. In the mice treated with nanoshells, all signs of cancer disappeared within 10 days; in the control groups, the tumors continued to grow rapidly.

CHAPTER 9 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

9.1 Advantages Plasmon waves are of particular interest because these are at optical frequencies. The higher the frequency of the wave, the more the information we can transport. Optical frequencies are about 100,000 times greater than the frequency of todays electronic microprocessors.

Fig 9.1 Plasmons Fibre

The key is using a material with a low refractive index, ideally negative, such that the incoming electromagnetic energy is reflected parallel to the surface of the material and transmitter along its length as far as possible. There exists no natural material with a negative refractive index, so nano-structured materials must be used to fabricate effective plasmonic devices. For this reason, plasmonics is frequently associated with nanotechnology. Plasmonics describes how ultra-small metallic structures of various shapes capture and manipulate light and provides practical design tool for nanoscale optical components. The fact that light interacts with nanostructures overcomes the belief held for more than a century that light waves couldnt interact with anything smaller than their own wavelengths. When light of a specific frequency strikes a plasmon that oscillates at a compatible frequency, the energy from light is harvested by the plasmon, converted into electrical energy that propagates through the nanostructure and eventually converted back into light. 9.2 Disadvantages

A major disadvantage of using metals in plasmonics and metamaterials is their inherent absorption losses. Bringing the technology from the research labs to applications requires that the losses be reduced considerably. On the other hand, plasmonic nanostructures can be of considerable help in extracting light out of devices such as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).A serious obstacle to the widespread use of this technology so far has been that plasmons tend to dissipate after only a few millimeters of propagation, making them unusable on most computer chips. Under the EU-funded Plasmacon project, a team of European researchers has reported they have now overcome this obstacle, demonstrating the first commercially-viable plasmonics devices. The researchers' approach was to develop a so-called "dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguide" (DLSPPW), a layer of dielectric that was patterned onto a gold film with a glass substrate. Using this structure, they were able to achieve waveguides only 500 nanometres in size and extend the signal propagation, opening the way to further advances. Unlike previous results obtained by other research groups, the technology developed by the team can create plasmonic devices using existing and low-cost commercial lithography techniques, and while some issues still need to be tackled, it would seem that one of the main obstacles has just been overcome.

CHAPTER 10 FUTURE CHALLENGES

10.1 Future Directions In the field of plasmonics, studying the way light interacts with metallic nanostructures will make it easier to design new optical material devices.One primary goal of this field is to develop new optical components and systems that are of the same size as todays smallest integrated circuits and that could ultimately be integrated with electronics on the same chip.The next step will be to integrate the components with an electronic chip todemonstrate plasmonic data generation,transport and detection.Plasmon waves on metals behave much like light waves in glass. That means engineers can use techniques like multiplexing or sending waves.Plasmon sources, detectors and wires as well as splitters and even plasmonsters can be developed. Applications mainly depend on controlling thelosses and the cost of nanofabrication techniques. Enhanced and directed emission of semiconductor luminescence(quantum dots) may well find commercial application in plasmonassisted lighting in the near future.Finally, plasmonic nanocircuits combine a high bandwidth with a high level of compaction and make plasmonic components promising for all-optical circuits. Plasmonic wires will act as high-bandwidth freeways across the busiest areas of the chip. Plasmons can ferry data along computer chips.Plasmonic switches required for this are under development.Rotaxanes molecule is being used for the purpose. Change in the shape of the molecule is the principleof this molecular switch.

Fig. 10.1 Advanced Plasmonics

10.2 Challenges Remaining Despite many advances in the field of plasmonics, several important open questions and problems remain. For example, how can plasmons be efficiently excited with nanoscale resolution? Surface plasmon polaritons are usually excited using far-field optical techniques, which have a higher resolution than plasmonic phenomena under investigation. However, for true nanoscale plasmonic studies, a surface plasmon-polariton point source with nanoscale dimensions is required.What are the fundamental processes that determine the losses of surface plasmon polaritons? is another important question. Practically, plasmon experiments are performed on poly-crystalline surfaces, and the limits to the losses due to surface roughness,grain boundaries, etc. are not known.Surface plasmons propagate along the chain of nanoparticles, but the losses are high. On the other hand,propagation losses are low in the case of nanowires, which leaves open the possibility of surface-plasmon optical devices.The dream of making all-plasmonic devices requires further research. In order to realise advanced active circuits,there is a need for active modulator and switching components operating at ultra-high bandwidth and low power utilisation.To manipulate surface plasmon polaritons on a surface, reflectors are needed. So far, macroscopic Bragg reflectors structured into the surface have been used. For true nanoscale integration, nanoscale surface plasmon polariton mirrors are required. Oncethese are realised, nanoscale cavities to confine surface plasmon polaritons can also be designed. The limits to the mode volume and quality factor of plasmonic cavities are not yet known.Finally, the use of a particle beam rather than a light beam to excite surface plasmon polaritons raises questions and novel opportunities regarding the selectivity with which surface plasmon modes with different symmetry can be excited.

CHAPTER 11

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 challenge 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.

REFERENCE

1. Scientific American India, April-2007 Issue 2. Optical fibres and fibre optic communication systems,Subir K Sarkar, S.Chand Publications 3. www.sciam.co.in 4. www.wikipedia.co.in 5. www.centralchronicle.co.in