The latest from the Wasserman group, published in Nano Letters (American Chemical Society) today. Led by Wasserman group graduate student Divya Prakash Hungund, with Zarko Sakotic, Noah Mansfield and Jeffery Allen and Monica Allen from Air Force Research Laboratory, we show that the metaplasmonic paradigm can enable a significant enhancement in sensitivity for nano-scale sensing applications at long wavelengths. Metaplasmonics, where plasmonic response in noble metals can be extended to the mid-IR by extreme geometric dilution of thin metal films, enables a strong compression of the plasmon wavelength and the potential for strongly enhanced overlap with nanoscale volumes. Moreover, because the metal’s optical properties can be controlled geometrically, we are able to tune wavelength compression and resonance independently. Divya recognized this, and showed that we could resolve weak spectral signatures in a polymer film of only 30 nm when coating arrays of these metaplasmonic resonators. This work offers a possible approach to highly sensitive detection of nano-scale analytes at micro-scale wavelengths!
You can find the paper here
This work was funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)