Semiconductors for Plasmonics and Metamaterials

Abstract

Plasmonics has conventionally been in the realm of metal-optics. However, conventional metals as plasmonic elements in the near-infrared (NIR) and visible spectral ranges suffer from problems such as large losses and incompatibility with semiconductor technology. Replacing metals with semiconductors can alleviate these problems if only semiconductors could exhibit negative real permittivity. Aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) is a low loss semiconductor that can show negative real permittivity in the NIR. A comparative assessment of AZO-based plasmonic devices such as superlens and hyperlens with their metal-based counterparts shows that AZO-based devices significantly outperform at a wavelength of 1.55 um. This provides a strong stimulus in turning to semiconductor plasmonics at the telecommunication wavelengths.

4 pages, 2 figures

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Hyperbolic metamaterials: fundamentals and applications
• Negative refraction in Al:ZnO/ZnO metamaterial in the near-infrared
• Thermal Hyperbolic Metamaterials
• High temperature epsilon-near-zero and epsilon-near-pole metamaterial emitters for thermophotovoltaics
• Ultra-compact modulators based on novel CMOS-compatible plasmonic materials
• A comparative study of semiconductor-based plasmonic metamaterials
• Plasmonic eigenmodes in individual and bow-tie graphene nanotriangles
• Thermal excitation of plasmons for near-field thermophotovoltaics
• Tunable light trapping and absorption enhancement with graphene-based complementary metamaterials
• Optical concentrator from a hyperbolic liquid crystal metamaterial
• Synchrotron radiation from a charge circulating around a cylinder with negative permittivity
• Kinetic theory of surface plasmon polariton in semiconductor nanowires
• A negative index metamaterial driven by phonons on a ZnO platform