Transverse and longitudinal coupling of LSPPs in isolated triangular Al–SiO ₂ –Al hybrid nanoplates for generation of local electromagnetic fields with enhanced intensity and increased decay time

Abstract Achieving a large enhancement of local electromagnetic fields in the ultraviolet waveband is desirable for some applications such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering and surface-enhanced fluorescence. In addition, it is more significant for some applications such as plasmon-enhanced harmonic generation to enhance the intensity of local electromagnetic fields and increase their decay time at the same time. In this paper, using the finite-difference time-domain method, we numerically demonstrate that using the linearly polarized light with a wavelength of 325 nm as the illumination light, an isolated triangular Al–SiO ₂ –Al hybrid nanoplate with optimized geometric parameters can produce a local electric field enhanced by a factor of about 108 at one of its top apexes, and produce two local electric fields enhanced by a factor of about 150 at two transverse dielectric/metal interfaces of one of its longitudinal side edges. Moreover, we also numerically demonstrate that the decay time of enhanced local electric fields produced by the isolated triangular Al–SiO ₂ –Al hybrid nanoplate is about 1.6 times as large as that of enhanced local electric fields produced by an isolated triangular Al nanoplate. These unique properties of the isolated triangular Al–SiO ₂ –Al hybrid nanoplate arise because of both the transverse coupling and the longitudinal coupling of localized surface plasmon polaritons in this structure. Our findings make triangular Al–SiO ₂ –Al hybrid nanoplates very promising for application in many fields such as surface-enhanced Raman scattering and plasmon-enhanced harmonic generation.