The resonant nature of metamaterials is very sensitive to the presence of dissipative losses in the constituting metals. The losses are particularly strong in the optical regime hampering the use of metamaterials for photonic applications. Therefore switching to monocrystals of noble metals alone should provide a substantial mileage in reducing losses.
Our crystal growth technique is based on epitaxial deposition, where metal vapor condenses on a crystalline substrate to a film with crystalline orientations closely related to that of the substrate.
We have revisited the epitaxial growth techniques and found a combination of a substrate and deposition conditions that substantially simplified the procedure of growing plasmonic mono crystals.
- Optical properties of single crystal silver thin films on mica for high performance plasmonic devices
T. Uchino, T. Koiwa, J. Y. Ou, and V. A. Fedotov
Opt. Mater. Express 8(6), 1642-1649 (2018) doi:10.1364/OME.8.001642 - Low-loss plasmonic metamaterial based on epitaxial gold monocrystal film
V. A. Fedotov, T. Uchino, and J. Y. Ou
Opt. Express20(9), 9545 (2012) doi: 10.1364/OE.20.009545
- Low-loss single crystal silver thin films for nanoplasmonics and metamaterials
T. Koiwa, T. Uchino, V. A. Fedotov, J. Y. OuIEEE 16th International Conference on Nanotechnology (IEEE-NANO), Sendai, Japan, 22-25 Aug. 2016
- Ultra-smooth epitaxial gold/silver thin films for low-loss plasmonic metamaterials
T. Uchino, T. Koiwa, V. A. Fedotov, and, J. Y. Ou
Materials Research Society MRS 2015 Fall Meeting & Exhibit, Boston, MA, USA, 29 Nov – 4 Dec 2015 - Single-crystal silver thin films for low-loss plasmonic metamaterials
T. Koiwa, V. A. Fedotov, J. Y. Ou, and T. Uchino
JSAP-OSA Joint Symposia 2015, Nagoya, Japan, 13 – 16 Sep 2015
Nano-optomechanics & Nanophotonics Research Group 