Tuning of the surface plasmon resonance in the UV-IR range for wider applications

The use of "Plasmonics" is one very promising method to improve the emission efficiencies of various light-emitting materials and devices. Next important challenge is to extend this method into UV and IR wavelength regions. To extend the tuning range into UV regions, we fabricated the nanograin structures of aluminum and succeeded in remarkable enhancements of deep UV light emissions from AlGaN/AlN-based quantum wells. We found that Al is very useful also for wider tuning of the plasmonic resonance at the visible wavelength region. The plasmonic tuning at the IR regions were also discussed by using tantalum nanoparticle. These tunable plasmonics over the UV-IR range should bring new possibilities of applications to plasmonics and lead to new class of several photonic and electronic technologies.