Experimental and Theoretical Study of Optical Antennas Formed from ZnO Nanorods Coated with a Thin Silver Film

A new design of an optical antenna formed from a ZnO nanorod coated with a thin metallic film is proposed. Arrays of ZnO nanorods coated with a thin silver film and highly oriented perpendicular to the substrate have been fabricated using carbothermal synthesis and magnetron sputtering. The problems of diffraction of electromagnetic waves by a single metal-dielectric nanooscillator located at the interface between dielectrics and on a 2D periodic array have been solved. Calculated electrodynamic characteristics of the optical nanoantennas of different lengths have been compared with experimental data. A new optical metal-dielectric diffraction grating absorbing almost 100% of the energy falling onto it at the resonance of the surface wave propagating along the metal (solid state plasma)/dielectric interface has been theoretically investigated.