0000000000306212
AUTHOR
A. Wig
Probing large area surface plasmon interference in thin metal films using photon scanning tunneling microscopy.
Abstract The interference of surface plasmons can provide important information regarding the surface features of the hosting thin metal film. We present an investigation of the interference of optically excited surface plasmons in the Kretschmann configuration in the visible spectrum. Large area surface plasmon interference regions are generated at several wavelengths and imaged with the photon scanning tunneling microscope. Furthermore, we discuss the non-retarded dispersion relations for the surface plasmons in the probe–metal system modeled as confocal hyperboloids of revolution in the spheroidal coordinate systems.
Imaging standing surface plasmons by photon tunneling
We present a direct method for optically exciting and imaging delocalized standing surface plasmons in thin metal films. We show theoretically that when imaging the field of the plasmons with a photon scanning tunneling microscope, the presence of the dielectric probe has a negligible effect on the surface modes of the metal film. We demonstrate that plasmon interference can be sustained in arbitrarily large regions of the metal film in comparison to the excitation wavelength. This knowledge can be important when seeking the relative distance between two scattering centers such as the presence of micron or submicron structures.
Observation of Knudsen effect with microcantilevers
The Knudsen effect is estimated theoretically and observed experimentally using a U-shaped silicon microcantilever. Though Knudsen forces are extremely small in most cases involving microcantilevers, there exist situations where these forces can be significant and may be important in atomic force microscopy and in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The criteria for the presence of Knudsen forces are outlined and an analytical expression in the form of a linear function of the pressure is given for the force in the free molecular regime. The experimental results display peaks in the transitional regime while varying linearly in the molecular regime.