2018-06-13, Möller, Thomas B., Ganser, Andreas, Kratt, Martina, Dickreuter, Simon, Waitz, Reimar, Scheer, Elke, Boneberg, Johannes, Leiderer, Paul

Heat management at the nanoscale is an issue of increasing importance. In optoelectronic devices the transport and decay of plasmons contribute to the dissipation of heat. By comparison of experimental data and simulations we demonstrate that it is possible to gain quantitative information about excitation, propagation and decay of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a thin gold stripe supported by a silicon membrane. The temperature-dependent optical transmissivity of the membrane is used to determine the temperature distribution around the metal stripe with high spatial and temporal resolution. This method is complementary to techniques where the propagation of SPPs is monitored optically, and provides additional information which is not readily accessible by other means. In particular, we demonstrate that the thermal conductivity of the membrane can also be derived from our analysis. The results presented here show the high potential of this tool for heat management studies in nanoscale devices.

2011-12-23, Kolloch, Andreas, Benner, Daniel, Bädicker, Matthias, Waitz, Reimar, Geldhauser, Tobias, Boneberg, Johannes, Leiderer, Paul, Scheer, Elke

The excitation of plasmons in metallic nanostructures by light can give rise to pronounced local optical field enhancement with respect to the incident electromagnetic field. The details of these optical near fields depend sensitively on the properties of the nanostructures (material, size and shape), on the light wavelength and polarization, and also on the substrate. In this article we discuss several of these aspects influencing the near-field distribution for a given object and the resulting surface ablation by optical near fields. To this end we use both experimental and simulation techniques. Additionally we will present first results of experiments investigating the light emitted during nanoscale ablation. Finally, we will present an example how plasmon-mediated near-field effects act on the conductance of atomic-size contacts.

2014, Ganser, Andreas, Benner, Daniel, Waitz, Reimar, Boneberg, Johannes, Scheer, Elke, Leiderer, Paul

We investigate the thermal transport originating from the propagation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a thin gold stripe. The SPPs are excited by a grating coupler on the Au stripe which was patterned onto a silicon membrane. The transmissivity changes of the Si membrane due to temperature-induced changes of the interference conditions enable measuring the temperature distribution with temporal and spatial resolution better than 1 μs and 1 μm. With this setup, we demonstrate that SPP excitation, propagation, and decay are accompanied by considerable heating and heat transport.

2014, Benner, Daniel, Boneberg, Johannes, Nürnberger, Philipp, Waitz, Reimar, Leiderer, Paul, Scheer, Elke

Metallic point contacts (MPCs) with dimensions comparable to the Fermi wavelength of conduction electrons act as electronic waveguides and might operate as plasmon transmitters. Here we present a correlated study of optical and conductance response of MPCs under irradiation with laser light. For elucidating the role of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), we integrate line gratings into the leads that increase the SPP excitation efficiency. By analyzing spatial, polarization, and time dependence, we identify two SPP contributions that we attribute to transmitted and decaying SPPs, respectively. The results demonstrate the role of SPPs for optically controlling the transport in metallic nanostructures and are important for designing opto-nanoelectronic devices.