Fabrication of Plasmonic Optical Probe and Its Characterization*

Recently, there have been tremendous interests about the nano-structured optical probe using surface plasmon polariton due to possible applications of the next generation local communication devices and nano-bio sensor technology. The nano-size metallic apertures such as metal-coated fiber probe and microfabricated pyramidal probe, have shortcomings of very low output intensities. With periodic groove or defects near the aperture on the microfabricated pyramidal probe, the huge output intensity enhancement has been reported [1]. In this talk, the fabrication with nano-flowers including metallic scattering centers around the nano-size aperture and its optical characterization of the pyramidal metallic probe will be presented. References: [1] The effect of groove shape on light transmission, S.S. Choi, etc, 3$^{rd}$ International Conference on Surface Plasmon Photonics, June 17-22, Dijon, France.