Plasmon rulers are an emerging concept in which the strong near-field coupling of plasmon nanoantenna elements is employed to obtain structural information at the nanoscale. Here, we combine nanoplasmonics and nanomagnetism to conceptualize a magnetoplasmonic dimer nanoantenna that would be able to report nanoscale distances while optimizing its own spatial orientation. The latter constitutes an active operation in which a dynamically optimized optical response per measured unit length allows for the measurement of small and large nanoscale distances with about 2 orders of magnitude higher precision than current state-of-the-art plasmon rulers. We further propose a concept to optically measure the nanoscale response to the controlled application of force with a magnetic field.

Date Published: 26 July 2016
PDF: 1 pages
Proc. SPIE 9883, Metamaterials X, 988310 (26 July 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2227644

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9883:
Metamaterials X
Allan D. Boardman; Nigel P. Johnson; Kevin F. MacDonald; Ekmel Özbay, Editor(s)