Abstract

Near-field optical transducers (NFT) take advantage of surface plasmon waves to create local electro-magnetic fields much smaller than the excitation light wavelength. Light incident on a metal creates a surface charge movement, which can be guided by design towards small spots with high charge concentrations. One example is a class of sub-wavelength high-throughput apertures that through their shape create local near-fields that are of much larger intensity than the excitation field. The apertures, and their conjugate forms the nano-antennas, enable new applications for optical processing, data storage, sensing and molecule manipulation, among others.

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