Ultraviolet beam focusing in gallium arsenide by direct excitation of surface plasmon polaritons

Abstract

This paper proposed that ultraviolet beam could be focused by gallium arsenide (GaAs) through direct excitation of surface plasmon polaritons. Both theoretical analysis and computer simulation showed that GaAs could be a reasonably good plasmonic material in the air in the deep ultraviolet waveband. With a properly designed bull's eye structure etched in GaAs, the ultraviolet electric field could be enhanced to as high as 20 times the incident value, and the full-width-half-maximum (FWHM) of the light beam could be shrunk from 48° to 6°. As a plasmonic material, GaAs was compared to Ag and Al. Within the studied ultraviolet waveband, the field enhancement in GaAs was much stronger than Ag but not as high as Al.