Crystalline structure's influence on the near-field optical properties of single plasmonic nanowires

The finite difference time domain method is employed to study the crystalline structure's influence on the propagation of a local excitation along metallic nanowires of subwavelength cross section. The metallic nanowires are elongated cylinders deposited on a transparent substrate. A tightly focused gaussian beam illuminates one end of the nanowires. According to recent experimental studies, the authors show that the propagation length of the localized surface plasmon excitations depends on the crystalline structure of the nanowire. Thus, they are able to determine the effective permittivity of metals in such a nanostructure versus its crystalline properties. The authors also demonstrate that the field of optical information transport could greatly benefit from the care of the subwavelength optical waveguide's crystallinity.