Plasmonic Nano-arrays for Enhanced Photoemission and Photodetection

Efficient conversion of photons to electrical energy has a wide variety of applications including imaging, energy harvesting, and infrared detection. The coupling of electromagnetic radiation to free electron oscillations at a metal interface results in enhanced electric fields tightly confined to the surface. Taking advantage of this nonlinear light-matter interaction, this work presents resonant surfaces optimized for combining electrical and photonic excitations in order to liberate electrons in a vacuum-channel device for applications ranging from enhanced photoemission to infrared photodetection.