Subwave length light focusing by surface plasmons on a silver film

Abstract

Two devices for subwave length focusing of light are explored. The first one is a thin film of a well reflecting metal which the converging beam of surface plasmons with a wave number $h>>\omega_0/c$ is excited on. The waist of this beam has a cross section that is much smaller than $\lambda_0^2$. The second device is a linear nanoantenna with a gap in the middle. A resonance plasmon is excited in the antenna. The field in the gap concentrates on the spot that is much smaller than $\lambda_0^2$. In both cases the effect of field enhancement in the spot of subwave length focusing is greatly decreased because of propagation losses in the first case and because of a small excitation cross section in the second case. It is suggested to improve on the effect of excitation of the film and the nanoantenna by means of interaction with an adjacent atom or quantum dot.