Self-excitation of surface plasmon polaritons

Abstract

The novel effect of self-excitation of surface plasmons (SESP) in a plasmonic nanocavity is predicted and its theory is developed from first principles. It is assumed that the cavity is formed by a nanogap between two metals and contains polarizable inclusions. Basing on the dyadic Green's function of the structure, the equations for the field in the cavity are investigated. It is shown that under certain conditions the field becomes unstable that leads to its self-excitation. The threshold criterion for self-excitation as well as the frequency of self-oscillation are derived in an analytical form. The SESP effect is explained in terms of a positive feedback for the polarization of inclusions provided by the field reflected from the cavity walls. Such a mechanism does not imply stimulated emission that distinguishes it from SPASER or plasmon laser.

5 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (1)

• Quantum-Coherence-Enhanced Surface Plasmon Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation

Cited by in corpus (5)

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• Dicke superradiance from a plasmonic nanocomposite slab
• Proposal for a Self-Excited Electrically Driven Surface Plasmon Polariton Generator
• Lasing versus lasing without inversion in an optically thin gain medium near a metal surface
• Proposal for an electrically controlled terahertz micro-oscillator