Metallic nanowires can lead to wavelength-scale microlenses and microlens arrays

We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the diffraction of microstructures based on silver nanowires leads to very efficient microfocusing effects. Pairs of parallel nanowires act as ultrasmall cylindrical microlenses with diffraction-limited resolution in the Fresnel region. This is a...

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Published inOptics express Vol. 20; no. 14; pp. 15516 - 15521
Main Authors Zaiba, Soraya, Kouriba, Timothe, Ziane, Omar, Stéphan, Olivier, Bosson, Jocelyne, Vitrant, Guy, Baldeck, Patrice L
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Optical Society of America - OSA Publishing 02.07.2012
Subjects
Optics
Physics
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Summary:We theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the diffraction of microstructures based on silver nanowires leads to very efficient microfocusing effects. Pairs of parallel nanowires act as ultrasmall cylindrical microlenses with diffraction-limited resolution in the Fresnel region. This is a new diffraction scheme to make micron-sized optical lenses with higher transmittance than plasmonic microlens based on nano-aperture arrays. Calculations based on the scalar Rayleigh-Sommerfeld integral highlights the pure scalar diffractive contribution. Thus, the plasmon contribution is negligible in such micron-sized metallic geometry. We demonstrate that two-dimensional grids of nanowires can be used to fabricate dense arrays of microlenses, i.e. 10000x10000 DPI (dots per inch).
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ISSN:1094-4087
1094-4087
DOI:10.1364/OE.20.015516