In this project we looked at simulations of various designs of nanoantennas that have highly

localised electromagnetic fields which are enhanced at the surface. Such a design would result in
a localised heating at certain wavelengths of light. The goal was to develop such a nanoantenna
that is responsive to light of 3.7 microns of wavelength. This can be used in surface enhanced IR
spectroscopy, as local nano-heat sources, an IR camera and many more.

Metals, gold in particular, intrinsically don’t have any significant interactions with IR radiation of
3.7 microns. However, with appropriate boundary conditions (design of the antenna) we can make
the material interact with the IR radiation.

After a literature survey, we found out why mid-IR is an untapped area with numerous applications
and novel methods to fabricate nanoantennas[1]; and how designs can be simulated
appropriately, and a comparison of heat generation between colloidal-like nanoparticles and
lithographic planar nanostructures[2]; and a novel thermal microscopy technique for heat mapping
of nanostructures based on molecular fluorescence polarisation anisotropy[3]; and a promising
new design called diabolo that offers highly localised field in response to optical fields[4]; and a
how diabolo design is better than dipole by a comparative study of heat generation between
diabolo and dipole antenna with various transition shapes in between and a new thermal
microscopy method based on the temperature-dependent photoluminescence lifetime of thin-film
thermographic phosphors[5].

From our literature survey we were convinced that the diabolo antenna
(Fig 1) was the way to go with their easy to fabricate and highly localised
fields. Some notable advantages of this design are:

1. Unibody design makes current flow possible

2. Symmetric trapezoids structures provide highly localised fields

3. Symmetric structure supports equivalent bi-directional flow of current

4. Central block acts as a nice hotspot with its localised magnetic field

The only issue is that the antenna geometries discussed in the literature
are optimised for optical and near IR. A well developed theory of the
same is also not available yet. Thus our goal now is to utilise this design
Fig 1.1: Diabolo antenna and optimise it to respond to light of wavelength 3.7 microns.

Fig 1.2:
Diabolo
antenna
with its
dimensional
parameters
labelled
We use the software FDTD Solutions by Lumerical for simulating the interaction between the
antenna and mid-IR light. Our setup (Fig 2) includes:

1. Diabolo antenna made of gold is on top of a 0.3μm SiO2 which is on 500μm of Si substrate.

2. Light is incident at the top, polarised along l2

3. Two monitors one above incident light and one below antenna, to monitor reflectance and
transmittance respectively.

4. The power absorbed by the antenna is analysed using the Power Absorbed (Advanced) tool.

5. A periodic symmetric boundary condition was used in X and Y and an ambient temperature of
300K

Fig 2: FDTD simulation setup. FDTD calculations are done inside the orangish brown box as seen in the
Perspective view. Light is incident at the top, polarised along the blue arrow and moving in the direction of
the purple arrow. The reflection monitor (can be seen as the yellow line above the incident light in the XZ
and YZ view); and the transmission monitor (can be seen as the yellow line below the antenna in the XZ
and YZ view). The power absorbed advanced analysis is done in the region inside the yellow box
surrounding the antenna.

We then performed a sweep over the parameters l1 and l2 over the range of 0.1μm to 1μm while
keeping the incident light at a fixed wavelength of 3.7μm to see at which dimension the
absorbance is the highest. The best results can be seen in Fig 3.

Fig 3.1: A
T graph
R between
transmission
(blue)
reflection
(green) and
l1. As can be
clearly seen,
theres
maximum
absorbance
at 0.6μm

l1

Fig 3.2: A
graph
between
transmission
(blue)
reflection
(green) and l1.
As can be
clearly seen,
theres
maximum
absorbance
at 0.7μm

The dimensions of the central blocks kept to the minimum possible fabrication accuracy as a
smaller cross-section leads to a higher resistance which gives us more Joule heating.

Next we set the incident light to have a wavelength range that includes 3.7μm and simulate it on
design parameters with higher absorbance around 3.7μm as per the result of the previous
sweeps. This way we can fine-tune the design to have the peak absorbance at 3.7μm.

The result of the above simulations is a finalised design with the following parameters:

1. l1 = 0.60μm
2. l2 = 0.70μm
3. l3 = 0.07μm
4. l4 = 0.07μm
5. t = 0.05μm

Finally we test our design by sending in a light with a range of frequency including 3.7μm and
verify the fact that absorbance peaks at 3.7μm. We also do the same for raise in temperature. This
is done by exporting the power absorbed data into the HEAT module of Lumerical’s DEVICE
software. The simulation’s geometrical setup (Fig 4) is the same as before except the addition of
5μm of air. The bottom of the substrate is fixed and the ambient is at a temperature of 300K and a
convective boundary condition is applied between all important interfaces.

Fig 4: The simulation setup

of the HEAT module of
DEVICE. The purple layer is
the Si substrate which is
coated with SiO2 (glass)
shown in grey. The antenna
sits on top of the glass
coating shown in green and
the translucent layer above
it is air. The orange bars
enclose the simulation
region. The incident light
has an FWHM of 19.5μm
and a 1mW power.
The result of the above simulation is shown in Fig 5. As can be seen, there is a raise of about 5K
for an incident light of 3.7μm wavelength.

Fig 5: The temperature profile of the antenna as calculated by DEVICE is seen above. A 3D cross-section
on the left and an XY cross-section on the right. The temperature is evenly spread out within the
simulation time (300fs) and this is expected because of the highly conductive gold and its nanoscale.

To further verify the fact that the design actually has a peak absorbance at 3.7μm, we send a
pulse of light with a range of frequencies including 3.7μm and we calculate the absorbance in
FDTD and importing the analysis of the power absorbed into the HEAT module of DEVICE, we’ll
calculate the temperature raise as a function of wavelength for our optimised design. The results
are summarised in Fig 6.

Fig 6: Graph on the left is wavelength (in μm) vs absorbance. Clearly the maximum absorbance occurs for
the wavelength 3.7μm. Graph on the right is wavelength (in μm) vs ΔT (in K). Again the maximum rise in.
Temperature occurs for the wavelength 3.7μm.

In conclusion, we have successfully designed and optimised the diabolo antenna for light of
wavelength 3.7μm. We have shown that there is a significant amount of absorption of radiation
and an incredible raise in temperature for an incident beam of just 1mW with an FWHM of
19.5μm.

We need to test this design experimentally by fabricating according to the simulation and verifying
the results. For future prospects we can look into the physics behind the phenomenon that makes
this possible. This will help us upgrade our device to its fullest capabilities. We can also start
exploring the applications of this device and utilities.

REFERENCES:

[1] Engineering mid-infrared nanoantennas for surface enhanced infrared absorption

spectroscopy: Ronen Adato, Serap Aksu and Hatice Altuğ

[2] Heat generation in plasmonic nanostructures Influence of morphology: G. Baffou, R. Quidant

and C. Girard

[3] Mapping Heat Origin in Plasmonic Structures: G. Baffou, R. Quidant and C. Girard

[4] Diabolo Nanoantenna for Enhancing and Confining the Magnetic Optical Field: T. Grosjean, M.
Mivelle, F. I. Baida, G. W. Burr, and U. C. Fischer

[5] Probing and Controlling Photothermal Heat Generation in Plasmonic Nanostructures: Zachary
J. Coppens, Wei Li, D. Greg Walker, and Jason G. Valentine