January 2016
Spotlight Summary by Kedar Khare
Efficient and versatile surface integral approach to light scattering in stratified media
“Nano-optics” broadly refers to the study of interaction of light with material structures having sub-wavelength features and the associated exotic (and often counter-intuitive) effects that allow us to probe nature beyond the traditional diffraction limit. Over the last couple of decades nano-optics has emerged as one of the most active fundamental research areas that has led to several practical devices such as photonic crystal waveguides, meta-materials, plasmonic sensors, near-field optical microscopes (or “nano-scopes”), nano-particle enhanced solar cells, and several healthcare innovations involving tailored nano-particles that are useful for cancer treatment and drug-delivery. At the heart of this impressive list of applications and devices is the ability of researchers to model the electromagnetic fields within and on the surfaces of sub-wavelength structures – a computationally intensive problem. The field simulations are essential as the subsequent device fabrication often requires expensive and time-consuming procedures. Over the years the structures of interest to nano-optics research are getting more and more complex and involve nano-layers of multiple materials in order to further enhance the corresponding device capabilities. The present work by Pratama and Oosten is important in this context. The well-known surface integral technique for electromagnetic simulations models the electromagnetic problem in terms of the unknown quantities (field, material properties, etc.) over the surfaces or interfaces between two media. The present paper addresses some of the technical difficulties associated with applying surface-integral-based techniques for modelling fields in layered/ stratified media and provides a robust efficient method for this problem. The accuracy of this approach is illustrated with efficient electromagnetic field simulations for well-known plasmonic structures with realistic parameters.
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Article Information
Efficient and versatile surface integral approach to light scattering in stratified media
Sandy Pratama and Dries van Oosten
Opt. Express 23(17) 21741-21760 (2015) View: Abstract | HTML | PDF