Plasmonic structures produce well-known enhancement of the near-field optical intensity due to sub-wavelength optical confinement. These properties can produce a significant change of transmission and reflection upon small mechanical change of the antenna configuration. We have developed a method based on this enhanced sensitivity for cooling and amplification of a moving mirror. Using finite difference time domain method and standard optomechanical coupled-equation, different regimes of operation such as laser detuning and cavity length were studied to compare the effect of the near-field enhancement with the conventional radiation pressure. Using practical microcavity parameters, we demonstrate significantly higher cooling - or amplification- efficiency for the near-field plasmonic effect. Moreover, the volume of the system is very small. We believe that the significant efficiency improvement and reduced volume due to the proposed near-field effect can make this approach practical for many applications ranging from gravitational wave detection to photonic clocks, high precision accelerometers, atomic force microscopy, laser cooling and parametric amplification.

Date Published: 17 August 2014
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 9163, Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties XII, 916320 (17 August 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2060735

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9163:
Plasmonics: Metallic Nanostructures and Their Optical Properties XII
Allan D. Boardman, Editor(s)