U.S.-Spain Cooperative Research: Scattering of Surface-Plasmon Polaritons by Surface Defects: Applications to Photon-Scanning Optical Microscopy'

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

0084423 Maradudin This three-year award, which supports U.S.-Spain cooperative research on scattering of surface-plasmon polaritons by surface defects, involves Alexei Maradudin of the University of California at Irvine and Jose Sanchez-Gil at the Institute of the Structure of Materials in Madrid, Spain. The objectives of their research are to produce equations describing the scattering of surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) by surface defects that can be solved numerically in an efficient manner; to provide information about how the scattering depends on the features of the defects; and to yield explicit analytical expressions for very narrow defects as well as for defect configurations of interest in photon scanning tunneling microscopy experiments. The U. S. investigator brings to this collaboration access to first rate computational resources and expertise in electrodynamics of nonideal surfaces. This is complemented by the Spanish investigator's computational skills and his experience in dealing with the electrodynamics of perturbed surfaces. The results of this research will benefit the electromagnetics of disordered media in general.