Photocathode performance improvement by plasmonic light trapping in nanostructured metal surfaces

We demonstrate 16 times increase in light absorption nano-structured metal compared to the flat surface by fabricating a subwavelength grating on gold surface. This light-trapping phenomenon can be used in many areas from solar energy conversion to photovoltaics. Here, we describe application to field enhancement in photocathodes where we show theoretically a performance increase of three orders of magnitude over conventional systems. We also describe the fabrication of these devices and present initial optical results.

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