1206.2771 (C. Brüggemann et al.)

Modulation of a surface plasmon-polariton resonance by sub-terahertz
diffracted coherent phonons    [PDF]

C. Brüggemann, A. V. Akimov, B. A. Glavin, V. I. Belotelov, I. A. Akimov, J. Jäger, S. Kasture, A. V. Gopal, A. S. Vengurlekar, D. R. Yakovlev, A. J. Kent, M. Bayers

Coherent sub-THz phonons incident on a gold grating that is deposited on a dielectric substrate undergo diffraction and thereby induce an alteration of the surface plasmon-polariton resonance. This results in efficient high-frequency modulation (up to 110 GHz) of the structure's reflectivity for visible light in the vicinity of the plasmon-polariton resonance. High modulation efficiency is achieved by designing a periodic nanostructure which provides both plasmon-polariton and phonon resonances. Our theoretical analysis shows that the dynamical alteration of the plasmon-polariton resonance is governed by modulation of the slit widths within the grating at the frequencies of higher-order phonon resonances.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.2771