Abstract
A novel optical effect can be observed in a thin gold foil due to the excitation of surface plasmons which permits a form of all-optical modulation at low pulse rates. Modulated excitation of surface plasmons by infrared photons is shown to couple to several beams at visible-photon energies. The coupling is manifested by the observation of the visible photons being pulsed by the action of the infrared pulses, and by the far field diffraction of the visible beams into concentric rings. When each visible beam also excites surface plasmons, then a quadratic dependence of the visible photon power upon the infrared incident power is measured. The decay of surface plasmons is implicated as the primary cause of thermally induced changes in the foil. The thermal effects dissipate in sufficiently small times so that operation up to the kilohertz range in pulse repetition frequency is obtained.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 315-320 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Thin Solid Films |
| Volume | 497 |
| Issue number | 1-2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 21 2006 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Funding
This work was supported in part by a contract with R&D Limited Liability Partnerships, Inc., and the suggestion of potential applications to the optical communications field involving the standing SP concepts are gratefully acknowledged [16] . This work was also supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under BAA 99-32 for development of a controllable diffraction element for spectroscopy using standing SPs.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency | BAA 99-32 |
Keywords
- Optical modulation
- Surface plasmon coupling
- Thin metal films