Research on compressed light-field and infrared reflection characteristics of patterned metallic micro-nano-structure arrays

Abstract

Metallic micro-nano-structure arrays can be used to induce a collective oscillation of free electrons on the surface of metal films, so as to generate relatively strong surface plasmons (SPs) at the metal and medium interface and further localized light field under the excitation of incident lightwaves. As the oscillating light field propagating along the interface, the field strength can be increased reasonably at the functioned metal surface such as the incident light energy being localized in the sub-wavelength region defined by the functioned micro-nano-structures. The common beam diffraction limit formed during lightwave transmission or process can be broken effectively. Through constructing SPs over the special micro-nano-structures, the infrared reflection characteristics can be changed and then the local light field originated from incident infrared radiation also be enhanced significantly so as to efficiently perform infrared detection. Generally, the reflectivity and light field distribution behaviors of the functioned metal surface can be modulated by changing featured parameters of the metallic micro-nano-structural arrays. In this paper, a metal micro-nano-patterned structures with an arrayed tip is established for compressing the incident light field and then reducing the reflectivity of the metal surface and thus sensing incident light energy. A finite integral method for simulating and analyzing the structural characters such as the distance between tips, the tip sharpness, the thickness of the metal film, is utilized to acquire the reflectivity and field enhancement characteristics. The infrared reflection spectrum and the near-field intensity distribution of the metallic micro-nano-structure are compared and analyzed. The results show that the response frequency and excitation intensity of SPs over the nano-tip array, the intensity and distribution region of the strong light field, can be controlled by matching the structural parameters and layout. The optimization of the metallic micro-nanostructure arrays is conducted so as to lay a solid foundation for further development of the similar technologies.