Systematic Full-Wave Characterization of Real-Metal Nano Dipole Antennas

A systematic and thorough study is performed of the optical metallic nano dipole antenna. Five metals are considered (silver, aluminum, chromium, gold, and copper), the length of the dipole is varied, and a very wide frequency band is considered. The study is performed using an in-house developed MoM (method of moments) electromagnetic solver. This solver already has been thoroughly validated against a commercial finite difference time domain (FDTD) solver widely used in this research field. The results concern input impedances, radiation patterns, gains, and radiation efficiencies. Finally, the effect of oxidation of the metal dipole is studied.