Proceedings Article | 7 February 2012
Proc. SPIE. 8236, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XIV
KEYWORDS: Signal to noise ratio, Plasmonics, Plasmons, Sensors, Plasmonic sensors, Electromagnetism, Optical microcavities, Near field optics, Absorption, Nanowires
High fabrication costs of complex photonic nano-devices make it imperative to have access to high-performance
computational tools, which can greatly accelerate the device design process by reducing the design-fabricationtesting
cycle. To this end, in this article we briefly review a numerical method based on the multiple scattering
algorithm, which we used to describe the second-harmonic generation in plasmonic nanostructures. Then, by
using specific examples, we illustrate how this method can be employed to characterize the nonlinear optical
modes of microcavities made of plasmonic nanowires. In particular, we show that such plasmonic microcavities
have three distinct types of modes, namely, plasmonic cavity modes, multipole plasmon modes generated via
the hybridization of modes of single nanowires, and whispering gallery modes. We also show that due to the
sensitivity of the nonlinear plasmonic cavity modes to the changes in the environment, they are ideal candidates
for nano-scale sensing devices, e. g., plasmonic sensors.
