Applied Nanophotonics, Liquid Crystals and Biomedical Optics

When a sculptured thin film (STF), made of a metal and ≤ 50 nm thick, is used in lieu of a dense layer of metal in the Kretschmann configuration, experimental data for a STF comprising parallel tilted nanowires shows that a surface plasmon resonance (SPR) can still be excited. As the porosity of the chosen STF increases, experimental data and numerical simulations indicate the SPR dip with respect to the angle of incidence of the exciting plane wave widens and eventually disappears, leaving behind a a vestigial peak near the onset to the total-internal-reflection regime.