Phonon resonant spectroscopic recognition of 4 nm silicon nitride particles by infrared near field microscopy

ORAL

Abstract

Silicon nitride polar dielectric nanoparticles, grown by high-temperature high vacuum reaction of Si(100) with a nitrogen plasma, are imaged using optical near-field microscopy in the infrared. Phonon resonant particles as small as 4 nm in size are detected, indicating a spatial resolution of $\sim \quad \lambda $/700, where $\lambda $ is the wavelength of light. Locally excited silicon nitride phonon polariton resonances occur around 934 cm$^{-1}$ and increase in intensity with the size of the nanoparticles. Experimental results are in very good agreement with dielectric function model calculations for thin films in the extended dipole approximation.

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Authors

  • Yohannes Abate

    • California State University, Long Beach

  • Johannes Stiegler

    • Nanooptics Laboratory, CIC nanoGUNE

  • Yaroslav Romanyuk

    • Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley

  • Andy Huber

    • 1 Nano-Photonics Group, Max-Planck-Institut f\"ur Biochemie, 82152 Martinsried and Center for NanoScience (CeNS), Munich, Germany

  • Stephen Leone

    • Chemical Sciences Division and Ultrafast X-Ray Science Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • University of California/LBNL/Berkeley
    • UC Berkeley
    • Departments of Chemistry and Physics, University of California, Berkeley, CA

  • Rainer Hillenbrand

    • Photonics Group, Max-Planck-Institut f\"ur Biochemie, Nanooptics Laboratory, CIC nanoGUNE, 20018 Donostia - San Sebasti\'an, Spain