The emission of light through thin metal films via surface plasmon-polaritons (Invited Paper)

When the emission of light by molecules, excitons etc. takes place close to a thin metallic film, coupling of power to surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) modes supported by the metal film often dominates. We explore the nature of the SPP modes and examine how the energy lost to them can be recovered through the use of periodic, wavelength scale microstructure. We show that the photoluminescence emission from a structure containing is much stronger than that from a similar planar structure. We look at the importance of the exact details of the microstructure on the emission process.