Plasmonic light trapping in nanostructured metal surfaces

We demonstrate the plasmonic trapping of light in nanometer sized trenches etched into in a planar metal surface. The subwavelength grating structure is shown to efficiently couple to p-polarized light and can be designed to achieve complete absorption at any desired wavelength from the UV to the IR. These structures have a number of useful practical features such as high polarization sensitivity, omnidirectional absorption and extreme field concentration. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3592567]