High-quality ultrathin gold layers for use in plasmonic and metamaterials applications

The propagation of electromagnetic waves can be manipulated at the nanoscale by surface plasmons supported by ultra thin metal layers. An adhesion layer, with thickness in the order of few nanometerss is used for depositing ultra thin metal gold layers. Cr and Ti are the most popular metallic adhesion layers. Apart from them, a non metallic silane based wetting layer like (3-Aminopropyl)trimethoxysilane (APTMS) can be used. The behaviour of the propagating surface plasmons due to the influence of these adhesion layers has not been thoroughly investigated. To study the influence of the adhesion layers on propagating plasmons for use in plasmonic and metamaterial applications,we experimentally compared the performances of the ultra-thin gold layers using Cr and APTMS adhesion layers and without any adhesion layer. We show that the gold layers using APTMS adhesion exhibit short range surface plasmon polaritons (SR-SPPs) with characteristics close to the theoretical calculations, considering an ideal gold film.