Diabolo nanoantenna for enhancing and confining the magnetic optical field

In this Letter, we introduce a new nanoantenna concept aimed at generating a single magnetic hot spot in the optical frequency range, thus confining and enhancing the magnetic optical field on the background of a much lower electric field. This nanoantenna, designed by applying Babinet's principle to the bowtie nanoaperture, takes the shape of a diabolo. It differs from the well-known bowtie nanoantenna in that the opposing pair of metal triangles are electrically connected through their facing tips. Thus instead of a large charge density accumulating at the air gap of the bowtie nanoantenna, leading to a large electric field, a high optical current density develops within the central "metal gap" of the diabolo nanoantenna, leading to a large magnetic field. Numerical simulation results on the first nanodiabolo geometries show a 2900-fold enhancement of the magnetic field at a wavelength of 2540 nm, confined to a 40-by-40 nm region near the center of the nanoantenna.

On the optimum form of an aperture for a confinement of the optically excited electric near field

A triangular nanoaperture in an aluminium film was used previously as a probe in a scanning near-field optical microscope to image single fluorescent molecules with an optical resolution down to 30 nm. The high-resolution capability of the triangular aperture probe is because of a highly confined spot of the electric near field which emerges at an edge of the aperture, when the incident light is polarized perpendicular to this edge. Previous numerical calculations of the near-field distribution of a triangular aperture in a planar metal film using the field susceptibility technique yielded a nearly quantitative agreement with the experimental results. Using the same numerical technique we now explored the possibility for a further confinement of the electric near field and an increase in its intensity by modifications of the form of a triangular aperture. By introducing a kink on an edge pointing into the aperture, an arrow-shaped aperture is formed with one convex and three concave metal corners. It turns out that this form leads to a substantial further confinement of the near-field intensity at the convex corner. By extending the wings of this arrow-shaped aperture a further 5-fold increase of the intensity can be obtained without a deterioration of the confined spot.

High-resolution mapping of the optical near-field components at a triangular nano-aperture

A triangular nano-aperture in an aluminum film was used as a probe in a scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) to image single fluorescent molecules with an optical resolution down to 30 nm. The differently oriented molecules were employed as point detectors to map the vectorial components of the electric field distribution at the illuminated triangular aperture. The good agreement of the experimental results with numerical simulations enabled us to determine both the field map at a triangular aperture and the exact orientations of the probing molecules.

Photonic nanopatterns of gold nanostructures indicate the excitation of surface plasmon modes of a wavelength of 50-100 nm by scanning near-field optical microscopy

Scanning near-field optical microscopy images of metal nanostructures taken with the tetrahedral tip (T-tip) show a distribution of dark and bright spots at distances in the order of 25-50 nm. The images are interpreted as photonic nanopatterns defined as calculated scanning near-field optical microscopy images using a dipole serving as a light-emitting scanning near-field optical microscopy probe. Changing from a positive to a negative value of the dielectric function of a sample leads to the partition of one spot into several spots in the photonic nanopatterns, indicating the excitation of surface plasmons of a wavelength in the order of 50-100 nm in metal nanostructures.

Enhanced light confinement in a near-field optical probe with a triangular aperture

We present a probe concept for scanning near-field optical microscopy combining the excellent background suppression of aperture probes with the superior light confinement of apertureless probes. A triangular aperture at the tip of a tetrahedral waveguide (full taper angle approximately 90 degrees ) shows a strong field enhancement at only one rim when illuminated with light of suitable polarization. Compared to a circular aperture of equivalent size, the resolution capability is doubled without loss of brightness. For a approximately 60 nm sized triangular aperture, we measured an optical resolution <40 nm and a transmission of approximately 10(-4).

SNOM/STM using a tetrahedral tip and a sensitive current-to-voltage converter

Scanning near-field optical microscopes (SNOM) using the tetrahedral-tip (T-tip) with scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) distance control have been realized in transmission and reflection mode. Both set-ups used ordinary STM current-to-voltage converters allowing measurement of metallic samples. In the transmission mode, a resolution of 10 nm to 1 nm with regard to material contrast can be achieved on binary metal samples. Because of the great near-field optical potential of the T-tip with respect to the optical resolution, it is a challenging task to find out whether these results can be transferred to non-metallic sample systems as well. This paper reports on a newly designed SNOM/STM transmission mode set-up using the tetrahedral-tip. It implements a sensitive current-to-voltage converter to widen the field of measurable sample systems. Beyond this, mechanical and optical measuring conditions are substantially improved compared to previous set-ups. The new set-up provides a basis for the routine investigation of metal nanostructures and adsorbed organic monolayers at resolutions in the 10 nm range.

Changes in the protonation state of bacterio-opsin during reconstitution of bacteriorhodopsin

Protonation changes of the protein occur during the reconstitution of bacteriorhodopsin from bacterio-opsin and all-trans retinal in the purple membrane of Halobacterium halobium. The protonation changes are conveniently determined from measures of the pH changes after photoisomerisation of 9-cis retinal in apomembrane preparations, which induces the reconstitution. In addition, to the omega-amino group of the lysine which is involved in the condensation of retinal and bacterio-opsin, the dissociation equilibria of at least two other amino acid residues are changed during the reconstitution. The results are consistent with a proposed model of chromophore structure in which an interaction of the Schiff's base occurs with two protonable amino acid residues.