Evolutionary optimization of optical antennas

The design of nanoantennas has so far been mainly inspired by radio-frequency technology. However, the material properties and experimental settings need to be reconsidered at optical frequencies, which would entail the need for alternative optimal antenna designs. Here we subject a checkerboard-typ...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 109; no. 12; p. 127701
Main Authors Feichtner, Thorsten, Selig, Oleg, Kiunke, Markus, Hecht, Bert
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 21.09.2012
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ISSN1079-7114
DOI10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.127701

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Summary:The design of nanoantennas has so far been mainly inspired by radio-frequency technology. However, the material properties and experimental settings need to be reconsidered at optical frequencies, which would entail the need for alternative optimal antenna designs. Here we subject a checkerboard-type, initially random array of gold cubes to evolutionary optimization. To illustrate the power of the approach, we demonstrate that by optimizing the near-field intensity enhancement, the evolutionary algorithm finds a new antenna geometry, essentially a split-ring-two-wire antenna hybrid that surpasses by far the performance of a conventional gap antenna by shifting the n=1 split-ring resonance into the optical regime.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.127701