Optical nanoantennas as on-chip spectrometer: Discriminating the wavelength of infrared light

• Published in: Europhysics letters Vol. 111; no. 3; pp. 34005 - p1-34005-p5
• Main Authors: Lin, Zhongjin, Lin, Jie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Les Ulis EDP Sciences, IOP Publishing and Società Italiana di Fisica 01-08-2015; IOP Publishing
• Subjects: 07.60.Dq; 42.66.Lc; 42.66.Qg; Antennas; Colour; Detectors; Dipoles; Infrared; Infrared radiation; Infrared spectrometers; Nanoantennas; Nanostructure; Optical properties; Spectrometers; Wavelengths; Yagi antennas
• ISSN: 0295-5075; 1286-4854
• DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/111/34005

Based on the size-dependent resonant property of optical nanoantennas, we propose and theoretically verify that the optical detector element, which is composed of three different-size dipole nanoantennas (these antennas arrayed in the same plane look like a Yagi-Uda antenna), can discriminate the wavelength of the detected infrared light. As it behaves like a spectrometer that just needs to be laid on a micro-chip, we can refer to it as on-chip spectrometer. Such optical detector element also can be well extended to the visible-light region, and especially it can capture colour information by itself without Bayer filter.