Sub-wavelength focusing of high intensities in microfibre tips

Author

Brambilla, G. ; Ding, M. ; Ou, J. -Y ; Sessions, N. ; Jung, Y. ; Fenwick, O. ; Stasio, F. Di ; Cacialli, F. ; Kou, J.-L. ; Xu, F.

Author_Institution

Optoelectron. Res. Centre, Univ. of Southampton, Southampton, UK

fYear

2012

fDate

1-3 Oct. 2012

Firstpage

404

Lastpage

408

Abstract

Sub-wavelength efficient intensity confinement has been demonstrated in nanostructured optical microfibre tips. Focus Ion Beam (FIB) milling was used to nanostructure gold-coated optical microfibre tips and form apertures at the apex. Simulations were carried out to optimize the device design. Enhanced transmission efficiency (higher than 10^-2) was achieved in spot sizes of ~λ /10. Nanostructured microfibre tips have the potential for a number of applications including optical recording, photolithography and scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM).

Keywords

focused ion beam technology; gold; micro-optics; milling; nanostructured materials; near-field scanning optical microscopy; Au; FIB; SNOM; device design; focus ion beam milling; nanostructure optical microfibre tips; nanostructured optical microfibre tips; optical recording; photolithography; scanning near-field optical microscopy; sub-wavelength efficient intensity confinement; sub-wavelength focusing; transmission efficiency; Apertures; Optical diffraction; Optical fibers; Optical imaging; Optical refraction; Optical surface waves;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photonics (ICP), 2012 IEEE 3rd International Conference on

Conference_Location

Penang

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-1461-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICP.2012.6379531

Filename

6379531