Abstract

A local capacitor model is presented that enables a simple, yet quantitatively accurate description of lightning rod effect in nanoplasmonics. A notion of λ-zone capacitance is proposed and applied to predict the strongly induced electric field by a light source near nanoscale metal edges such as metal tip or metal gap. The enhancement factor, calculated from the local capacitor model, shows an excellent agreement with more rigorous results.

© 2009 IEEE