Design and Parametric Simulation of Triangle Nano Particle Structures For The Visible and Near Infrared Frequencies
Design and Parametric Simulation of Triangle Nano Particle Structures For The Visible and Near Infrared Frequencies
Design and Parametric Simulation of Triangle Nano Particle Structures For The Visible and Near Infrared Frequencies
Abstract
In this paper, the cross bow-tie nano-antenna (CBNA) with dimensions around wavelength of incident light is designed
and simulated, with an emphasis on absorption cross section, absorption and reflection coefficients, as well as the elec-
tric field enhancement, in the visible and near-infrared spectral regime. The optical properties of the proposed nano-
antenna have been investigated in details based on its geometric parameters and material type (for patch, substrate and
the medium surrounding the antenna). Then the array of unit cell of proposed CBNA has been performed. The spectral
response of the nano-antenna can be adjusted by geometric parameters, which provides control over the spatial reso-
nance position and electric field enhancement amplitude. The CBNA with due to symmetric shape along the antenna’s
length and width, is less sensitive to incident light polarization. Since the polarization of incident light is not selective
and this nano-structure can enhance the incident light in both directions x and y, so it will useful for optical energy
harvesting. In order to determine the resonance properties of CBNA, computer simulation technology (CST) microwave
studio(© 1998–2018 CST.), as a three-dimensional electromagnetic field solver based on finite integration technique (FIT),
is used for simulations. Commercial software, FDTD (finite difference time domain) Solutions(© 2013–2017 Lumerical
Inc.), available from Lumerical corporation, is also used to calculate the amount of absorption, reflection and transmis-
sion coefficients of the CBNA.
Keywords Optical nano-antenna · Bow-tie nano-antenna · Resonance · Surface plasmon · The visible and near-infrared
spectrum
Received: 2 May 2019 / Accepted: 10 September 2019 / Published online: 17 September 2019
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fields at optical frequencies can penetrate metal particles. of noble metals is often in the visible spectrum or in the
Therefore, metals in optical frequencies are not perfect area of interest for photovoltaic applications. In photovol-
conductors. The depth of penetration is defined by the taic, antenna coupled diode rectifiers convert the incident
skin depth of the material, which is very relevant at the electromagnetic wave to electrical signal. lumped-element
optical spectrum [3]. and traveling wave detectors based on MIM (metal-inso-
Surface plasmon polaritons(SPP) and localized surface lated-metal) diode have studied in [16]. MIM diode in
plasmon (LSP) are two main components of plasmonic. traveling wave detector is used as plasmonic waveguide.
When metal nano-structures contain a dielectric (with Recently, theoretical studies focused on bowtie anten-
a positive real dielectric constant) and a metal (with a nas [17] and gap antennas, due to their considerable abil-
complex dielectric function that the imaginary part of it ity of strongly enhancing and confining optical fields to
is positive and small, and real part of it is large and nega- sub-wavelength dimensions, surpassing the diffraction
tive), are illuminated by light, at the interface of metal and limit, and efficiently emitting the near field energy to the
dielectric, collective electron oscillations can be excited far field [18]. One way to achieve a broadband behavior
[4]. SPPs are surface excitations that can confine the inci- and achieve the benefits of localized near fields [19, 20] is
dent light in the perpendicular direction at the interface to develop an antenna with its symmetric structure (similar
at a sub-wavelength scale. SPPs are due to indirect interac- to its own). A prominent feature of the bowtie geometry is
tion (through prism, grating and etc.) incident light (only supporting multiple surface plasmon modes, facilitating
with TM polarization) and metal nano-structures. The field enhancement across a large bandwidth [21]. Through
interaction of light with the curvature of the surface of the field patterns in the visible light frequency spectrum, it
metal nano-particles leads to the coupling of conduction is observed that plasmon and Fabry–Perot resonances in
electrons with the incident electromagnetic field. LSPs are a bowtie antenna, depend linearly on aperture perimeter
non-propagating excitations due to the direct interaction and film thickness, respectively [10].
of light with metal nano-particles, which are caused by Optical nano-antennas have great potential for numer-
a scattering phenomenon, and exist forboth TE and TM ous applications in many fields, such as nano-imaging,
(transverse electric and transverse magnetic) polarizations. spectroscopy, photovoltaics [11], near field applications
The interacting amount of light with the nano-particle in biosensing [22], nanolithography [23], photo detec-
depends on the size, shape and composition of the nano- tion [24], trapping [25], heat generation [26], high-reso-
particle and environment of it [5–7]. lution microscopy and light emission tailoring [11], opto-
The interaction of light with metal nano-structures due electronic nano-device and surface enhanced Raman
to the frequency dependence of the metal complex dielec- scattering(SERS) [27] and white light generation [19]. The
tric function [8, 9]. Resonances of nano-structures com- most widely used methods for optical nano-antennas sim-
posed of noble metals with sub-wavelength dimensions, ulation are the finite integration technique(FIT), the finite
usually occur in the optical spectrum. The performance element method(FEM) [28] and the finite difference time
of the optical antennas in increasing and also confining domain (FDTD)method [29]. In this paper we have used
the incident light to a small volume, in addition to the ACS and electric field enhancement for comparison nano-
proper design of the geometric shape and the dimen- structures composed of TNP that can be useful as design
sions of the composition, depends on the properties of and simulation guidelines for optical nano-antennas and
surface plasmon resonances. Optical antennas based on absorbers of electromagnetic energy.
the plasmonic phenomenon by controlling of sub-wave-
length light and overcoming the diffraction limit, can be
used to manipulate, control and visualize optical fields on 2 Simulation results and discussion
nano-meter scale [10]. Nano-antennas resonance length
is considerably shorter than 𝜆2 [11, 12], where 𝜆 is the free- The finite integration technique (FIT), using CST micro-
space incident wavelength. The optical antenna defines wave studio is utilized for simulations in the wavelength
as a device to efficiently convert free-propagating optical range of 200–1500 nm. In this article, we consider the
radiation to localized energy, and vice versa [3]. Instead of structures consist of two, three, and four coplanar gold
galvanic (electric) transmission lines, localized oscillators triangular wings that the angle between adjacent arms
or incident beams are often used for driving and illuminat- is 180, 120, and 90 degrees, respectively, as shown in
ing of optical antennas [13]. Fig. 1a. Then, we investigate and compare the absorption
By increasing applications of nano-antennas [14], effi- cross section, absorption coefficient and the electric field
ciently harvesting of pure energy have been of particu- enhancement of them. Figure 1b shows the prototype pro-
lar interest [15]. Both types of surface plasmons can be posed CBNA and its geometry parameters. The structure
used to increase absorption in solar cells. The resonance consists of four gold triangular nano-particle placed in
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Fig. 1 a Three investigated structures of triangular nano-particle, b Left panel, a three-dimensional schematic of cross bow-tie nano-
antenna. Right panel, a side view and top view of the nano-antenna
close vicinity to each other in the form of cross structure. The ratio of the radiation energy absorbed by a nano-
Here, we carried out a rigorous analysis and simulation structure to the total energy radiated to it is called the
of the design parameters by varying one parameter at a absorption coefficient. Absorption cross section is a
time (while other parameters are kept fix) and monitoring measure of the probability of an absorption process on
the variation of absorption cross section(ACS), absorption the surface of the nano-structure. The absorption cross
coefficient and electric field magnitude of the structure. section, absorption coefficient and absorption spectrum
The base gold triangular nano-particle(TNP) can be char- of a nano-antenna depend on the incident light (wave-
acterized by four structure parameters: the triangle length length, polarization and the angle of collision to nano-
a = 260 nm, width b = 140 nm, thickness t = 60nm and structure), the structure of nanoantenna (the intrinsic
bend radius r = 2 nm. Johnson and Christy’s material data qualities of the material, shape, dimensions and the
is used for gold. The TNPs is placed on the SiO2 layer with arrangement of the nano-particles on the nano-structure
𝜀sub = 2.4 and thickness of h = 40 nm as a substrate and surface) and the medium surrounding the nano-antenna
surrounding medium is vacuum with 𝜀background = 1. (the refractive index). The absorption cross section is a
factor in determining the quality of nano-antenna in the
2.1 Investigation of the absorption absorption of incident radiation wave [30].
cross section and the reflection cross section The nano-antenna samples are illuminated by x-polar-
of the nano‑antenna samples ized incident plane wave in + z direction. The amplitude
of the incident light is set to be 1 V/m throughout this
When the electromagnetic waves hit the nano-structure, paper. As shown in Fig. 2a, b, in the cases with 4, 6 and
some of them are scattered and the rest are absorbed. 8-TNP, the ACS peaks by increasing the arm number:
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1. In the low wavelengths, show the same trend and have R = |S1,1 |2 , T = |S2,1 |2 , A = 1 − R − T (1)
a blue shift.
2. In the high wavelengths, the peaks amplitude decrease In Fig. 5, the result simulations show that the normal-
and find the red shift. ized absorption coefficient of CBNA, especially at visible
3. The 4-TNP case also has a peak at 1200 nm in addition wavelengths, is more than the other two cases. The main
to the aforementioned two peaks due to vertical plas- differences between them are the structural symmetry
monic resonance. in the horizontal and vertical directions as well as the
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Fig. 7 a Top and side view of CBNA in FDTD solution environment. b The normalized absorbance, reflectance and transmittance coefficients
of CBNA for the incident plane wave in + z direction. c The electric field intensity(|E|2 ) on the x–y plane, 5 nm above the structure
reflection and transmission coefficients. Then we plot 2.3 Investigation of the electric field enhancement
the absorption coefficient graph through the reflection of the nano‑antenna samples
and transmission data using EXCEL and MATLAB soft-
ware’s and apply Eq. (1), as seen in Fig. 7b. The tip of The normalized electric field in any point is defined in Eq.
the triangular nano-particle has not bend in the FDTD (2) as follows:
Solutions environment, which makes a slight differ- √
ence between the CST and FDTD Solutions results. As (|Ex |2 ) + (|Ey |2 ) + (|Ez |2 )
we expect, the intensity of the electric field in the sharp |E| = (2)
Ei
edges and corners, and especially in the center of the
gap, is significantly stronger, as shown in Fig. 7c.
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where Ex , Ey and Ez are the x, y and z components of the skin depths of aluminum, gold, silver and copper in the
electric field, Ei is the amplitude of the electric field of visible and near-infrared frequencies are as follows:
the incident light source. According to the definition, |E|
(skin depth)Cu > (skin depth)Au , (skin depth)Ag > (skin depth)Al
is dimensionless quantity represents the magnitude of
the enhancement of the electric field at any point [31]. It Noble metals such as gold, silver, and copper have good
can be seen from Figs. 8 and 9 that the increasing of the absorption rates in the visible frequencies. Electrons are
CBNA electric field for both linear x-polarized and circu- excited by energy absorption from the high bands below
lar polarization of incident plane wave has two constant the Fermi surface and this increases the imaginary part of
resonances, with the difference that the amplitude of |E| 𝜀 . Therefore, the coupling between photons and electrons
in the circular polarization has doubled from the structural that result in plasmonic waves is significant in these met-
symmetry in the direction x and y are obtained. The nano- als. However, in metal nano-structures made of aluminum,
antenna sample with two TNP arms has the strongest and platinum and beryllium, surface plasmon excitation is not
lowest electric field enhancement with x-polarized and cir- observed. The skin depth of the metal is defined as Eq. (3):
cular polarization of incident light, respectively, because it 𝜆
is not possible to create a near field with circular polariza- 𝛿= (3)
2𝜋k
tion using a two-arm nano-antenna. These types of nano-
antennas are coupled by a component of the light com- where k is absorption coefficient of the metal and 𝜆 is the
ing down along the nano-antenna axis and produce linear wavelength. In visible and near–infrared regime, the Eq.
polarization. The other vertical component that needed to (3) approximate to:
form a circular polarization is not produced in this process. c
𝛿= (4)
The results of the illumination of the CBNA are identical 𝜔p
with the incident plane wave with different linear polariza-
tion angles (phi), as shown in Fig. 10. From the results in where 𝜔p is the plasma frequency and c is the velocity
Figs. 8, 9 and 10, it is found that the CBNA is suitable for of light.Therefore, the resonance wavelength decreases
linear and circular polarization. inversely with the increasing plasma frequency of the
metal and so increases nearly linearly with increasing
2.3.1 Effect of the material properties of the TNP skin depth of the metal of nano-antenna [10], as shown
in Fig. 11.
Metals exhibit very different electromagnetic properties
at optical frequencies. According to information [10], the
Fig. 8 The electric field enhancement of three nano-antenna samples illuminated by incident plane wave a with x-polarized, b with circular
polarization
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Fig. 9 The electric field enhancement of three nano-antenna samples illuminated by x-polarized and circular incident plane wave
2.4 Effect of the embedding depth of the TNP to 2.65,the resonance peaks shift to longer wavelengths
in the substrate but for 𝜀sub > 2.65 where, (𝜀gold = −5.3 = −2𝜀sub ) result in
nonlinear variation, as shown in Fig. 13b.
As depicted in Fig. 12b, the increasing of embedding
depth (but until the especial depth) of CBNA in a silica 2.6 Effect of the background of the antenna
substrate, causes a red-shift toward longer wavelengths.
The effects of substrate polarization, as well as the inter- For 𝜇 = 1 , By increasing the refractive index of the medium
action between the TNPs and the applied incident field, surrounding the antenna(𝜀background ), the resonance
make these changes [32]. peak shifts slightly to longer wavelengths but while
𝜀background > 2.65 where, ( 𝜀gold = −5.3 = −2𝜀background ) this
2.5 Effect of the material properties order is absent, as shown in Fig. 14.
of the substrate
2.7 Two‑dimensional array of the proposed CBNA
The electric dispersion of gold is illustrated by the John-
son and Christy’s material data in Fig. 13a. The real part As we see in Fig. 15, for the 3 × 3 array of CBNA, with
changes of the dielectric function of the gold are nonlin- increasing center-to-center spacing of adjacent cells, from
ear for values smaller than − 5.3. For 𝜇 = 1 , By increasing 560 to 700 nm, the amplitudes of both resonance peaks
the refractive index of the substrate material(𝜀sub ) from 1 increase simultaneously, but when this distance is greater
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3 Conclusions
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