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(Hosting-NewsWire.com, August 02, 2013 ) Berlin, Germany -- A new study, led by researchers based at the Abbe Center of Photonics in Jena, Germany has proven the possibility to fabricate gaps between flat metallic objects within single-nanometer precision. The achieved separations in the work titled, 'Deep-Subwavelength Plasmonic Nanoresonators Exploiting Extreme Coupling' to appear in Nano Letters, are as small as 3 nanometer. The new technique used to achieve the tiny separation is called atomic layer deposition. It allows putting single atomic layers on surfaces and enables an extremely precise adjustment of gaps made of e.g. glass.
“One of our goals was to show that metallic structures can be fabricated with a predefined gap size”, says physicist Rasoul Alaee, lead author and researcher at the Abbe Center of Photonics. “With the agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental results of its physical properties, we can be sure to understand the investigated structure.”
As a proof of principle, the authors demonstrated how to design devices able to absorb light at predefined infrared wavelengths completely. This behavior is astonishing as the researchers used gold as the metal of choice. The noble metal obeys low losses and is usually chosen for applications in optics or electronics. The acquired absorption is thus caused by the sophisticated geometries used in the experiment.
Alaee outlines, “Now it is time to think about new possibilities offered by our findings. Both real-world-devices as well as fundamental research should benefit from them.” The minimum distance of 3 nanometers between adjacent gold surfaces has been chosen to not enter a regime, where classical physics may no longer be applicable. Alaee believes that this limitation is no longer needed and a concentration on largely unexplored physics seems possible. “At distances around a single nanometer, a lot of interesting phenomena occur. With our newly gained knowledge, we hope to be able to study new physics.”
The natural curiosity of researchers leads them to push the frontiers of science using newly acquired techniques. A society, however, demands ongoing innovation to improve everyone's life through available products and applications. Here, the study may provide valuable insights as the investigated gold devices are much smaller than the wavelength of light. That means, they fulfill a main requirement for ultrafast detectors as charges can be transferred in small time frames between a sub wavelength detector and attached electronic circuits. Such detectors promise to enable ultrafast communication devices. An improvement of solar cell efficiencies seems further possible because subwavelength structures have been already successfully used to enhance the absorption efficiency of sunlight.
The scientific work by Alaee and co-workers has direct implications for fundamental research and applications. We are very curios to see what can be accomplished with the introduced ideas and applied techniques.
For further information please consider the article itself, which is available online (registration required). An introduction explaining the underlying physics of the experiment in general terms can also be found elsewhere.
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