Plasmonic focusing of infrared SNOM tip patterned with asymmetric structures

Several scattering type metal tips patterned with asymmetric metal/dielectric bump gratings are studied and proved to be efficient in focusing light energy into nano 'hot spot'. The dielectric bump tip shows complex mechanisms including local geometric resonance, surface plasmon polariton (SPP) standing wave resonance and Fano effect in the near-field enhancement. Additionally, considering the practical situation, we also demonstrate that, for the case of bending tip surface, the grating coupling method for plasmonic nano-focusing is still applicable if the intervals between neighboring bumps are well designed according to the surface bending curvature. With practical realizations, our results could benefit not only infrared scanning near-field optical microscopes (SNOMs) but also many other applications in nanotechnology such as sensing and lithography. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America