Low-temperature enhancement of plasmonic performance in silver films

Sriharsha V. Jayanti, Jong Hyuk Park, Alexandr Dejneka, Dagmar Chvostova, Kevin M. McPeak, Xiaoshu Chen, Sang Hyun Oh, David J. Norris

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

While plasmonic metals can manipulate optical energy at the nanoscale, they suffer from significant losses at visible wavelengths. We investigate the potential of low temperature to decrease such losses in optically thick Ag films. We extract the complex dielectric function (or relative permittivity) from spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements for smooth single-crystalline, smooth polycrystalline, and rough polycrystalline films down to liquid-helium temperatures and fit these data to a temperature-dependent Drude model. Smooth single-crystalline films exhibited the largest improvements relative to room temperature. Below 50 K, the surface plasmon polariton propagation lengths increased by ~50% at 650 nm. In rough polycrystalline films, improvements of 10% are expected.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1147-1155
Number of pages9
JournalOptical Materials Express
Volume5
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Optical Society of America.

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