Optical gain medium for plasmonic devices

Metallic nanostructures upon resonant excitation can enhance the local electric field, which could be increased, if these nanostructures are embedded in a gain medium. In this sense, we propose a gain medium as a candidate for the development of nanowaveguide amplifier based on Er3+-doped tellurite glass with embedded silver nanoparticles (NPs). Those glasses are characteristic for their amplifying response in the telecommunication window, and when we embedded metallic NPs modified the crystalline potential surrounding to the Er3+ ions, due to an electric coupling between NP (received/emitter) and Er3+ ion (emitter) enhancement luminescence intensity from the 4I13/2→4I15/2 transition radiative of the Er3+ ions. Besides, the presence these NPs changes the refraction index these glass modifying the complex parameter β(neff) increasing the polarizability of the samples f(Ɛd). Therefore, a gain medium – Er3+ ions (amplification function in the telecommunication band) with silver NPs (luminescence enhancement) – can increment the propagation length of light into nanowaveguide.

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