Current Nanoscience, 2005, 1, 17-22 17

Plasmonics – Towards Subwavelength Optical Devices

Stefan A. Maier*

Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK

Abstract: Aspects of the optical properties of metallic nanostructures sustaining surface plasmon-polaritons are reviewed,
focusing on differences with dielectric counterparts for the creation of functional nanoscale optical devices such as
waveguides and resonators. The ability of plasmonic structures to confine light to volumes significantly smaller than the
diffraction limit of light is discussed and a number of important applications are presented, with an emphasis on structures
consisting of metallic nanoparticles. The important challenge of efficient excitation of surface plasmon-polaritons in a
micro-optic framework is also addressed. A unified description of both plasmonic and dielectric photonic structures using
quality factor and effective mode volume as figures of merit should allow for a clear choice of materials system for micro-
and nano-optic devices.

Keywords: Surface plasmon-polaritons, plasmonics, photonics, nano-optics, micro-resonator, integrated optics.

The beginning of the 21st century sees the electronics and
telecommunications industries that have been and are the
motors of continued growth of wealth and ultimately
sustainable development facing a fundamental challenge: the
size of electronic and photonic integrated components has
reached the length scale of electron and light waves,
respectively. For electronics, this implies that future devices
with lateral sizes below ten nanometres will have to be
designed utilizing fundamental quantum effects such as the
quantization of charge and conductance. Integrated optical
components such as waveguides and micro resonators on the
other hand have approached a seemingly unsurpassable
barrier – the diffraction limit on the order of a couple of
hundred nanometres for visible and near-infrared light [1]. In
order for the size gap between microelectronic and photonic
integrated devices to be closed, this fundamental limit must
be broken. This would enable the creation of a wealth of
highly miniaturized optical devices with superior speed and
sensitivity suitable for large-scale integration on a chip, with
immediate applications in telecommunications and optical
computing as well as in the biomedical and biotechnological
sciences, where nanometre-sized light volumes will enable
unprecedented control over agent trapping and sensing.
In a simplified language, the diffraction limit states that it
is not possible to focus or confine a three-dimensional light
beam to a lateral size smaller than about half its wavelength
in the host medium. This relation can be easily derived from
basic principles such as Fourier reciprocity or the dispersion
relation of light in a three-dimensional light guide [2].
Applied to optoelectronics, the diffraction limit opposes the
creation of dielectric waveguides or fibres that can confine
the guided light – the optical “mode” – to a lateral dimension
smaller than a couple of hundred nanometres for visible and
near-infrared light [1]. Both conventional waveguides and
*Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Physics,
University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, UK; Tel: +44 1225 38 3370; Fax: +44
1225 38 6110; E-mail: S.Maier@bath.ac.uk
light guides based on dielectric photonic crystals [3]
sufferfrom this fundamental integration limit. In microscopy
and biology, the diffraction limit hampers the detection of
ultra-small amounts of molecules in cellular concentrations
by limiting the focusing pow er of conventional lenses.
Despite this ultimate integration limit for photonic
components based on dielectric materials, tremendous
progress has been made in the design and fabrication of
integrated photonic devices such as waveguides and
resonators based on insulators and semiconductors, enabling
unprecedented control over light-matter interactions.
Dielectric optical microcavities have been employed in a
wide range of fields from cavity quantum electrodynamics
(cQED) [4] to single-molecule sensing [5]. Through a
plethora of studies, is has emerged that the strength of light-
matter interactions within such a cavity can be characterized
in terms of its quality factor Q, being proportional to the
cavity photon lifetime, and its effective mode volume Veff,
quantifying the electric field strength per photon. Prominent
geometries include whispering-gallery modes in dielectric
spheres or microdisks [6] (Fig. (1a)), and dielectric photonic
crystals [3]. The former can sustain very high quality factors
Q>108 enabling Q/Veff ~ 10∧5, [7], where Veff is the effective
mode volume normalized to (λ0/n)3, the cubic wavelength in
the material. Photonic crystal microcavities on the other hand
allow Veff to approach the theoretical (diffraction) limit,
corresponding to a cubic half wavelength in the material [8].
For further miniaturization, a switch to a conductive
material system is necessary. While it is well known that
metallic cavities comprised out of nearly touching metallic
plates (Fig. (1b)) can confine light to volumes smaller than
the diffraction limit inside the dielectric gap, it is a priori not
clear that Veff itself is smaller than the diffraction limit, since
upon resonance a significant amount of energy resides inside
the metal. Thus, in order to truly assess the advantages, if
any, of metallic structures for nano-optical devices, a unified
description of both dielectric and metallic optical cavities
and waveguides is needed.

1573-4137/05 $50.00+.00 © 2005 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.

18 Current Nanoscience, 2005, Vol. 1, No. 1
Fig. (1). Modes of dielectric and metallic optical resonators calculated using finite-difference time-domain simulations. (a) Whispering-
gallery-type mode of a dielectric microdisk. (b) Surface plasmon-polariton gap mode of a metallic plate resonator with a nanoscale air gap.
Shown are both the geometry and the calculated mode profile (electric field distribution).
Having the abovementioned developments and words of
caution in mind, this paper presents a mini-review of efforts
to break the diffraction limit by employing not dielectric but
conducting and thus metallic materials such as Au and Ag
for the creation of functional photonic devices. The
respective subfield of micro- and nanophotonics has been
dubbed “plasmonics” [9], and recent years have seen an
explosion of interest in this research area [10]. Here, the
discussion is limited to an overview of the physics and
applications of plasmonic devices based on metallic
nanoparticles, mainly in a context of light confinement and
waveguiding. After a brief overview of the history of this
field and the unique advantage of plasmonic devices –
namely the ability to sustain an effective mode volume Veff
truly smaller than the diffraction limit of light -, applications
of resonantly excited metallic nanoparticles both in cavity-
type geometries for sensing and as building blocks for
waveguides are discussed. Additionally, the important
current problem of efficient sourcing and integration of
plasmonic structures into a conventional optical framework
based on dielectric fibres is addressed.
The ability of the interface between a metal and a
dielectric to sustain electromagnetic surface waves known as
surface plasmons or surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) has
been known ever since the pioneering theoretical work of
Ritchie [11] and the electron-loss spectroscopy experiments
by Powell [12]. These surface modes are built up via a
coupling of coherent oscillations of the conduction electrons
at the metal surface with interfacial electromagnetic fields
Stefan A. Maier
and can be excited both via particle impact and photons
provided that the conservation of energy and momentum is
satisfied [13]. The excitation of surface plasmon-polaritons
leads to the build-up of an enhanced, essentially two-
dimensional optical field propagating in-plane at the
interface and confined perpendicular to it in the so called
near-field zone, where the electromagnetic field decays
evanescently into the dielectric and metallic media. The
spatial extent of this one-dimensional confinement can be
tuned by the frequency of the exciting light and can be
significantly smaller than the diffraction limit. Parallel to
these propagating, dispersive plasmons, it was recognized
ever since the seminal work of Mie [14] that small metallic
nanoparticles with a diameter smaller than the free space
wavelength of light can sustain resonant modes which
manifest themselves as hugely increased absorption and
scattering cross sections at specific frequencies in the visible
and near-infrared regime of the spectrum, and these
resonances have been identified as dipole-like surface
plasmon resonances [15, 16].
Up to the 1980s, interest in metallic structures sustaining
SPPs such as flat films and metal nanoparticles has been
mostly confined to the physical sciences, while during the
80s and early 90s the abilities of SPPs to confine
electromagnetic energy in ultrasmall light volumes were also
discussed and applied in the interdisciplinary context of
surface-enhanced Raman scattering [17] and biological
sensing using flat metallic films for one-dimensional field
confinement [18], culminating in the demonstration of
Plasmonics – Towards Subwavelength Optical Devices Current Nanoscience, 2005, Vol. 1, No. 1 19

single-molecule Raman sensing on roughened Ag surfaces

[19, 20]. More recently, renewed interest in SPPs has
sparked through the sophistication of electromagnetic
modelling techniques as well as (nano-)fabrication tools such
as electron beam lithography, ion beam milling and bottom-
up self-assembly. This has allowed the creation of metallic
micro- and nanostructures with designed functionalities,
making up the new research subfield of nanophotonics
named plasmonics [9, 10], aided by the concurrent
development of scanning near-field optical microscopy [21].
Apart from biochemical sensing applications based on flat
films [18] and metal nanoparticles [22], where the light
confinement below the diffraction limit allows highly
sensitive detection of agents either via enhancement of
(Stokes) emission or mass (refractive index) sensing, other
prominent applications of SPPs include guiding of
electromagnetic energy, and the enhancement of light
transmission through apertures in patterned metallic films
[23].
As potential building blocks for a nanoscale photonic
infrastructure, plasmonic waveguides have attracted a
significant amount of research interest during the last years,
and optical components such as straight waveguides, beam-
splitters, interferometers and SPP-bandgap surfaces based on
modulated and textured metallic films have been
demonstrated [24-26]. Additional lateral confinement of the
guided modes can be provided by using µm-scale metallic Fig. (2). Dark-field microscopy image (top) and light scattering
stripes [27-29] or nanowires [30] instead of extended films, spectra (bottom) of Au nanocrystals of different shapes (adapted
enabling the creation of metallic light guides for visible and from reference [35]). The measured spectra (black curves) show
near-infrared light with a lateral mode size on the order of or good agreement with predictions from a simple analytical extension
below the diffraction limit of light, respectively. In parallel of quasistatic Mie theory (open circles).
with these research efforts into propagating, dispersive
plasmons on interfaces, there has been a great amount of strength on the dielectric side of the interface. This yields
research into the properties of localized plasmons in potentially favourable ratios of Q/Veff for certain geometries
nanometre-sized metallic particles [14], and it has been and frequency ranges (S. A. Maier and O. Painter,
demonstrated that ordered arrays of such particles can be forthcoming). Plasmonic cavities compare favourably to
used to channel energy with a mode size below the dielectric cavities for excitation at mid-IR and far-IR
diffraction limit to nanoscale detectors with typical frequencies. A reasonably high Q/Veff can still be achieved in
attenuation lengths on the order of 6dB/200 nm upon the visible and near-infrared range of the spectrum closer to
resonant excitation [31-34], with possibilities to increase the the material plasmon resonance. In this regime, the main
attenuation length by optimizing particle shape and advantage of plasmonic cavities lies in their nanoscale
decreasing inter-particle spacing. During these and many physical size allowing for the integration of a large number
other studies, it has emerged that due to resistive heating of devices on a chip, for example in a context of sensing.
losses of metallic structures, there exists a fundamental
An even simpler resonator system consists of a single
trade-off between a tight energy confinement and loss, which
metallic nanoparticle with a diameter significantly smaller
places important constraints on the photonic function of
than the wavelength of light. As is well known, the spectral
plasmonic waveguides and resonators of a given geometry.
position of the surface plasmon dipole resonance of such a
This trade-off between localization and loss manifests particle – characterised by a homogeneous polarisation
itself in low quality factors Q for plasmonic nanoresonators. throughout the particle volume and a dipole-like electric
Indeed, simple resonators such as single particles, arrays of field distribution – depends on the particle material, its shape
them or the gap resonator outlined in Fig. (1b) generally and size, as well as the dielectric environment [15, 16, 35].
show Q<100, much smaller than the quality factors of even As a dramatic visualization of the shape and size effects, Fig
medium-quality dielectric cavities such as spheres or (2) shows a dark-field microscopy image of an ensemble of
microdisks [6]. However, the unique advantage of plasmonic Au nanoparticles and the respective resonance spectra [35].
resonators lies in the fact that the effective mode volume Veff From this and many studies, it has emerged that the particle
can be well below the diffraction limit, due to the fact that resonances show a pronounced red-shift as well as
even though upon resonance a substantial fraction of the substantial broadening with increasing particle size, due to
mode energy resides inside the metal, the high lateral wave depolarization effects [36] and increased radiation damping
vectors available at resonance ensure a tight concentration of [37]. A detailed description of these resonance shifts and
the energy to the surface and thus a high electric field damping processes has been given recently [38].
20 Current Nanoscience, 2005, Vol. 1, No. 1 Stefan A. Maier

Fig. (3). Metal nanoparticle plasmon waveguides. (a) Far-field extinction spectra of one-dimensional plasmon waveguides consisting of 50
nm Au particles separated by a 25 nm air gap on ITO-coated glass. The collective plasmon resonance of the linear array shows a red-shift for
longitudinal polarisation (dark curve) and a blue-shift for transverse polarisation (light curve), respectively. Also shown is the extinction for
unpolarised light (dotted curve). The inset shows a scanning electron micrograph of the waveguides. (b) Dispersion relation of plasmon
waveguides of this geometry for longitudinal (dark curve) and transverse (light curve) polarisation calculated using finite-difference time-
domain simulations (squares and triangles) and a simple point-dipole model (dotted curves). The inset shows the electric field distribution
around the waveguide for two points on the dispersion curve. Images adapted from [33, 46].

Upon resonance, metallic nanoparticles sustain a
heightened electromagnetic near field evanescently decaying
within a few tens of nanometres from the particle surface.
Thus, the particle resonance is very sensitive to its
immediate dielectric environment, which can be employed
for mass-sensing applications [22, 39] in a framework of
biochemical and gas sensing. In the absorption-dominated
limit, which is suitable in most circumstances except for
particle sizes comparable to the wavelength of light, the field
enhancement is proportional to. In gap resonators and
ensembles of nanoparticles with only nanometre-sized gaps,
this ratio can get very large, enabling the enhancement of
Raman Stokes scattering up to twelve orders of magnitude
[40], which has allowed the observation of Stokes signals
from single molecules adsorbed on roughened Ag surfaces
[19, 20]. As has been confirmed in many theoretical studies,
such surfaces can sustain “hot-spots” for field enhancement
in crevices between nearly touching metallic particles.
The interaction between plasmon-resonant metallic
nanoparticles allows the observation of well-defined modes
in ordered arrays, which can be fabricated most easily using
electron beam lithography [41]. Two types of interactions
can be distinguished, depending on the interparticle
separation d. For d ~ λ0, far-field interactions between the
particles dominate, which influence both the spectral
position and broadness of the collective plasmon modes.
This has been confirmed in a variety of studies on ordered
two-dimensional arrays of Au and Ag nanoparticles [42-44].
For d << λ0, strongly distance-dependent near-field inter-
actions dominate, which leads to a splitting of the collective
plasmon resonance in one-dimensional arrays of such
particles [45-47]. Fig (3a) shows far-field extinction spectra
of arrays of closely spaced Au nanoparticles of 50 nm
diameter for both a polarization along the chain axis (dark
curve), and for perpendicular polarisation (light curve). The
magnitude of the splitting is a measure of the strength of the
near-field interactions between adjacent particles [46, 48],
and can be tuned both by interparticle separation and shape
[47]. Upon local excitation, such arrays can guide
electromagnetic energy over a distance of a couple of
hundred nanometres (typical attenuation lengths for Ag
particles with 80 nm spacing 6dB/200 nm) with a lateral
mode confinement below the diffraction limit of light, thus
allowing for the creation of subwavelength waveguides [9,
31, 33, 34]. Fig (3b) shows the dispersion relation of such a
waveguide consisting of Au spheres of 50 nm diameter with
a center-to-center spacing of 75 nm between adjacent
particles in air for both longitudinal (dark dataset) and
perpendicular (light dataset) polarisation, calculated using
finite-difference time-domain simulations (dots) and a
simple quasi-static point-dipole model (dotted curve) of
particle interactions.
These resonantly excited metal nanoparticle plasmon
waveguides provide a good example for the abovementioned
trade-off between localization and loss of plasmonic devices.
Due to the resonant particle excitation, the field is highly
concentrated to the individual particles, yielding a lateral
mode confinement below the diffraction limit of light and a
concomitant large damping, since a substantial fraction of
the energy of the mode resides inside the metal. Thus, the
energy attenuation length of such a waveguide is in the
submicron regime, which makes this waveguide design
unsuitable for longer range guiding, but instead suggests
applications as end-structures to suitably designed longer-
range plasmon waveguides for channelling energy to
nanoscale detectors such as single molecules. The same
Plasmonics – Towards Subwavelength Optical Devices Current Nanoscience, 2005, Vol. 1, No. 1 21

Fig. (4). Fiber-accessible low-loss near-infrared metal nanoparticle plasmon waveguide consisting of a two-dimensional array of metal
nanoparticles arranged on a 500 nm square lattice on a thin silicon membrane. (a) Dispersion relation of the plasmon mode showing the
crossing of the zone-folded mode with the light lines of silica and air, allowing phase-matched excitation using thinned optical fibres
(“tapers”). (b,c) Finite-difference time-domain calculated mode profile (electric field distribution) in top and lateral view, showing the
confinement of the mode to the centre of the waveguide due to a lateral grading in particle size. (d) Scanning electron micrograph of the
fabricated waveguide. (e) Schematic of the fabricated, undercut structure. (f) Transmission spectrum of a fibre taper placed in close proximity
to the waveguide, showing resonant power transfer with efficiencies up to 75 %. The inset shows the evolution of the coupling with
decreasing taper-waveguide gap. Adapted from reference [50] and S. A. Maier and O. Painter, to be published.

reasoning applies to continuous metallic nanowires, which
have slightly longer energy attenuation lengths on the order
of 1-2 µm [30], but show less possibilities of dispersion
engineering.
Experimentally, modes in such sub-diffraction-limit
waveguides have been excited using near-field optical
microscopy [34] or far-field launch pad techniques [30],
respectively. Apart from the fact that these techniques do not
allow for phase-selective excitations, the large attenuation of
the resonantly excited nanoparticle and nanowire
waveguides hampers high excitation efficiencies, which are
estimated to lie below 1 % and at about 15% for near-field
optical and launch pad excitation, respectively [21, 49].
However, the periodic nature of metal nanoparticle plasmon
waveguides can allow for highly efficient phase-selective
excitation of travelling modes provided that the constituent
nanoparticles are excited non-resonantly at a frequency far
below their respective plasmon resonances. Caution is
necessary though, since non-resonant excitation drastically
decreases lateral confinement, thus increasing radiative
losses, which can now be as high as the absorptive losses of
resonantly excited particle waveguides. In order to overcome
this obstacle, a technique similar to index guiding in the
lateral direction has to be employed in the form of a laterally
graded lattice in nanoparticle size. A respective low-loss
plasmon waveguide that can be efficiently excited at a
wavelength in the telecommunication window around 1500
nm is shown in Fig. (4) [50]. The waveguide consists of a
two-dimensional square lattice of Au nanoparticles with a
lattice period of 500 nm on a thin silicon membrane as
depicted in Fig. (4d) and (4e). The electric field distribution
of the optical mode calculated using finite-difference time-
domain simulations is shown in Fig. (4b) and (4c) in top and
lateral view, respectively. Vertically, confinement is ensured
by a bound air/metal surface plasmon mode, while a couple
of lateral periods with particles graded in size provide lateral
confinement of the energy to the centre of the waveguide.
The dispersion properties of this design are shown in Fig.
(4a). Due to the periodicity in the propagation direction, the
dominant plasmon mode is folded back into the first
Brillouin zone, thus crossing the light lines of both silica and
air. This suggests the possibility of phase-matched excitation
of the waveguide using tapers drawn from conventional
optical fibres via evanescent coupling, which has been
confirmed experimentally (S. A. Maier and O. Painter,
forthcoming). Fig. ( 4f) shows the spectral dependence of the
power transmitted through a fibre taper placed at a distance
of about 1 µm above the centre of the waveguide. A strong
transmission dip indicative of power coupling up to 75%
from the fibre to the waveguide at a wavelength of 1590 nm
is clearly discernable. Using Fabry-Perot analysis of the
transmission curve, the energy attenuation length of this
waveguide was estimated to be about 50 µm. This
waveguide concept thus allows for highly efficient, phase-
matched excitation of plasmon modes using conventional
dielectric optics, which could greatly aid the development of
integrated optical switches and sensors. Future challenges lie
in the interfacing of such plasmon coupler structures with
22 Current Nanoscience, 2005, Vol. 1, No. 1 Stefan A. Maier

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Received: 30 September, 2004 Accepted: 14 October, 2004