研究目的
To investigate the propagation of electromagnetic excitations in certain types of metal-coated tapered tips terminating SiO2 multimode optical fibres with a subwavelength output aperture and to enable better interpretation of previously reported experimental results concerning some features of the mesoscopic effect of spectral modulation observed for a broadband light transmitted by such tips.
研究成果
The numerical simulations indicate two possible mechanisms explaining enhanced levels of intermodal dispersion in metal-coated SNOM tips, but it is not possible to discern decisively between these two alternatives based on the existing set of experimental data. New experiments can be recommended with SNOM tips equipped with much thinner adhesion layer, so the plasmonic modes could fully interact with the outer metal coating.
研究不足
Due to computational restrictions, only the end of a tip, 18 μm long, was modelled. The simulations did not reveal any explicit mode coupling, but the imperfections of real tips can cause mode transformations implying possible involvement of more than two modes.