Controlling strong electromagnetic fields at subwavelength scales

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 97; no. 3; p. 036405
• Main Authors: Le Perchec, J, Quémerais, P, Barbara, A, López-Ríos, T
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Physical Society 21-07-2006
• Subjects: Condensed Matter; Optics; Other; Physics; surface plasmons; Fabry-Perot resonator; near-field optics
• ISSN: 0031-9007; 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.036405

We investigate the optical response of two subwavelength grooves on a metallic screen, separated by a subwavelength distance. We show that the cavity, Fabry-Perot-like mode, already observed in one-dimensional periodic gratings and known for a single slit, splits into two resonances in our system: a symmetric mode with a small Q factor, and an antisymmetric one which leads to a much stronger field enhancement. This behavior results from the near-field coupling of the grooves. Moreover, the use of a second incident wave allows control of the localization of the photons in the groove of our choice, depending on the phase difference between the two incident waves. The system acts exactly as a subwavelength optical switch operated from far field.