Optics Communications 368 (2016) 197201

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Optics Communications
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

Current Perspectives

YagiUda optical antenna array collimated laser based on surface

plasmons
Long Ma a, Jie Lin a,b,n, Yuan Ma b, Bin Liu a, Jiubin Tan a, Peng Jin a
a
b

Center of Ultra-Precision Optoelectronic Instrument, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada NS B3J 1Z1

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 26 November 2015
Received in revised form
27 January 2016
Accepted 29 January 2016
Available online 12 February 2016

The divergence and directivity of a laser with a periodic YagiUda optical antenna array modulated
surface are investigated by nite element method. The nanoparticle optical antenna arrays are optimized
to achieve the high directivity and the small divergence by using of Helmholtz's reciprocity theorem.
When the nanoparticle antenna replaced by a YagiUda antenna with same size, the directivity and the
signal-to-noise ratio of the modulated laser beam are notably enhanced. The main reason is that the
directors of the YagiUda antennas induce more energy to propagate towards the antenna transmitting
direction. The results can provide valuable guidelines in designing collimated laser, which can be widely
applied in the eld of biologic detection, spatial optical communication and optical measurement.
& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Diffraction theory
Radial polarization
Subwavelength focusing

1. Introduction
Optical antennas have the potential application in the eld of
optical sensing and detection due to their high efciency and directivity [15]. Generally, the divergence angle of a beam from a
waveguide cannot be smaller than their diffraction limit
= arcsin (/s ), where and s represent the wavelength of light in
vacuum and the thickness of a waveguide core, respectively.
Generally, if optical elements are not applied to modulate the
beam, the vertical divergence angle in a semiconductor laser, such
as quantum cascade laser (QCL), generally ranges from 30 to 80
at full-width at half maximum (FWHM) [6]. Therefore, a series of
theory and technology were proposed to realize small divergence
angle in the past years [710].
Recently, metallic nanostructure has shown great potential
applications in the eld of lithography and laser direct writing.
Metallic plasmonic nanostructures have many advantages in terms
of conversion efciency, directivity and miniaturization. Therefore,
various optically metallic nanostructures were investigated and
experimentally demonstrated to collimate the beam. The diffraction free beam with 6-degree divergence angle was rstly
achieved by Ebbesen et al. by using the bull's-eye-patterned metal
plate in the visible frequency region [11]. In 2008, a mid-infrared
QCL with 2.7 divergence was realized by patterning an asymmetric metallic grating on the facet of a laser [12]. YagiUda antenna, which was rstly proposed in 1926, is famous for the high
n

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: linjie@hit.edu.cn (J. Lin).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optcom.2016.01.090
0030-4018/& 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

efciency and directivity in the eld of communication. Intuitively,

researchers started employing nanostructured YagiUda antennas
in narrowing laser beams with the development of nanotechnology. In 2007, the possibility of directing optical emissions using a
YagiUda antenna was studied [13]. In 2010, the optical YagiUda
antenna in 662 nm wavelength was demonstrated experimentally
[14]. Meanwhile, several researches on YagiUda structure optimization, observation methods, excitation methods and fabrication process, were carried out [1521]. Positioning a quantum dot
close to the feed has been demonstrated to be an effective way to
excite YagiUda antenna [1315]. Research results have indicated
that the emission of an antenna strongly depends on the excitation
position, which has been experimentally veried for the high
energy beam [15]. The position, shape and light quantity of the
quantum dot will impact the performance of a single optical antenna and their array. However, the divergence angle of a Yagi
Uda optical antenna is usually larger than 40. Therefore, the design of a YagiUda optical antenna array is important to reduce the
laser beam divergence angle and entirely avoid the inuence of
quantum dot.
Here, a YagiUda antenna array is proposed to reduce the divergence angle of a beam emitted from a laser. The silver YagiUda
antenna array is surrounding the exit facet of the laser. To couple
the far-eld radiation from the exit facet of laser, the antenna array
is driven by the surface plasmons wave rather than the quantum
dots. The nanostructure antenna array is analyzed by the nite
element method (FEM). Numerical results indicate that the directivity of the beam are improved by the antenna array. The
performance is better than that of a single YagiUda antenna. The
YagiUda antenna array can be integrated in the facet of a laser.

198

L. Ma et al. / Optics Communications 368 (2016) 197201

Therefore, the far-eld divergence is highly compressed by interference effect. Meanwhile, the directivity and signal-to-noise ratio
(SNR) are also enhanced by the antenna array.

2. Methods
A silver nanoparticle, which is shown in Fig. 1(a), is an optical
antenna. Their directivity is usually poor comparing with that of
the other antenna, such as the YagiUda antenna. A typical Yagi
Uda antenna consists of driver element and parasitic elements as
shown in Fig. 1(b). The parameters of the silver optical YagiUda
antenna are optimized for the incident beam with the wavelength
of 633 nm. The width w of the ve nanoparticles is 60 nm. The
length f of the feed is 200 nm. d and r are 120 nm and 240 nm,
respectively. The distances between directors and the feed are
200 nm, and the distance between the feed with the reector is
160 nm. The size of the nanoparticle antenna is the same as the
feed in the YagiUda antenna. From Fig. 1(c), the directivity of
YagiUda antenna is better than that of a nanoparticle antenna.
The FWHM of the divergence angle of the YagiUda antenna is
approximately 40 in the transmitting direction.
A symmetric metallic nanostructure with periodic grooves is
designed to investigate the directivity of nanoparticle antenna
array. The structure is shown in Fig. 2(a), where the silver grating
patch height and width are 60 nm and 200 nm, respectively. The
height and width of the patch are equal to the width and length of
the nanoparticle antenna. The thickness of grating h is about
120 nm. The width s of the laser port is 400 nm. The wavelength
of incident light is 633 nm. The material around the grating is
vacuum. Based on the Helmholtz reciprocity theorem, the structure parameters are optimized [22]. The grating period is optimized as 600 nm. The groove number is 16. The optimized silver
groove is introduced to the exit port of a laser. A 100 nm thickness
substrate, which is lled between the laser facet and the silver
grating, is worked as the insulating layer. In this structure, the
patch of the grating is regarded as a silver nanoparticle antenna
attached on the silver layer. Therefore, the whole grating acts as
the nanoparticle antenna array. For the grating with a period of
600 nm, the phases of each optical nanoparticle antenna are equal.
Because of the interference effect, the intensity is increasing in a
narrow angle, which means a small divergence angle. The distance

Fig. 2. (a) Nanoparticle antenna array and (b) YagiUda antenna array on the facet
of a laser. h, w, s, p and d1 are 120 nm, 60 nm, 400 nm, 700 nm and 660 nm,
respectively.

between the rst particle antenna and the port has a strong inuence on the propagation of surface plasmons excited at the port
of laser [23]. The distance d1 is specially optimized as 700 nm.

3. Results and discussion

At far eld, the FWHM of divergence angle of the optimized
structure is as small as 8 for TM wave. The directivity is used to
characterize the collimation of a light beam. The directivity is
dened as D = 10 log10 (2Ipeak/Itotal ), where Ipeak is the peak intensity and Itotal is the total intensity at the port, respectively [24].
For the TM wave, D is approximately 11 for the antenna array,
while D is only 5 for an unpattern case. For TE wave, D is approximately 7 and 6 for the same structure. The directivity is obviously improved by the patterned surface. In Fig. 3(a), the

Fig. 1. (a) Schematic of a nanoparticle antenna. (b) Nanoparticle optical YagiUda antenna. f is 200 nm. d and r are 120 nm and 240 nm, respectively. (c) Lobe patterns of
(a) and (b).

L. Ma et al. / Optics Communications 368 (2016) 197201

199

Fig. 3. (a) Intensity distribution of electric eld near the port without patterned surface. (b) Same as Fig. 3(a) but collimated by the nanoparticle antenna array.

Fig. 4. Electric eld intensity divergence at far-eld in vacuum. Curve marked by

circles is for particle antenna arrays, while curve marked by triangles is for Yagi
Uda antenna array. (For interpretation of the references to color in this gure, the
reader is referred to the web version of this paper.)

intensity distribution of electric eld around the port with unpatterned surface indicates that the power is distributing in the
half space. For the case modulated by the nanoparticle array, the
intensity distribution of electric eld is displayed in Fig. 3(b). The
power induced by nanoparticles diffracts into space with a consistent directivity. The magnitude decays from the middle to both
sides, owing to the energy loss during propagation. In Fig. 4, the
intensity distribution at far eld is shown as the blue line marked
by circles for array modulated exit port. Obviously, the energy
concentrates in a small angle. The FWHM and SNR are approximately 8 and 3:1, respectively.
To further improve the directivity and reduce the far-eld divergence, the YagiUda array is introduced. The nanoparticle arrays are replaced by the YagiUda array. The designed structure is
given in Fig. 2(b). In this structure, the patch of the grating acts as
the feed of the YagiUda antenna. The nanoparticles marked by 1,
2, 3 are the directors of the YagiUda antenna. The dielectric
material around the antenna array is vacuum. Excited at the exit
port of the laser, surface plasmons wave propagates along the
surface of the grating to both sides. The feeds of the YagiUda
array are driven by surface plasmons wave and then induced by
the directors towards the antenna transmitting direction. If reectors are embedded between the grating and the laser, the light

will be coupled into the reectors before arriving at the edge of

the port. Therefore, reectors are not employed in the structure. In
contrast, the size of feed in the YagiUda antenna array, the particle antenna array or the single YagiUda antenna are the same.
The thickness of grating is h 120 nm. The width of laser exit port
is s 400 nm. The width of the nanoparticle is w 60 nm. The
length of each feed is f 200 nm. The period of the array is
p 600 nm. The distance between the rst feed and the port is
d1 = 660 nm . The length of director is d 120 nm. Each YagiUda
antenna element has exactly the same size as that of the optimized
single YagiUda antenna shown in Fig. 1(b). The number of the
YagiUda element in the array is 16.
For the optimized structure, a highly collimated beam in the
far-eld is observed for the TM polarized beam with wavelength
633 nm. The electric eld intensity distribution near the laser exit
port is shown in Fig. 5. Obviously, the YagiUda antennas induced
the light propagating towards the antenna transmitting direction.
The eld intensity divergence of the beam in the far-eld is shown
as the curve marked by triangles in Fig. 4. The FWHM of the divergence is about 8. The intensity on the side lobe is signicantly
compressed due to the YagiUda antenna array. Furthermore, the
maximal electric intensity is 1.4 times that of the nanoparticle
array, and SNR is greater than 5:1. The calculated directivity for
YagiUda antenna array is D 17, which is nearly twice as large as
that of the nanoparticle array. The divergence angle, peak intensity, SNR and directivity are obviously improved by the Yagi

Fig. 5. Electric eld intensity distribution near the exit port of the laser.

200

L. Ma et al. / Optics Communications 368 (2016) 197201

compressed and the divergence angle is 11. The ratio of the angle
in YagiUda-embedded-SiO2-substrate/free-space to that in
YagiUda-embedded-SiO2/SiO2 is 16/11 1.455. Considering the
refractive index of SiO2 with 1.457, they are approximate each
other. It indicates that the refraction occurring at facet of SiO2 and
free space will raise the divergence angle of YagiUda antennas
array.

4. Conclusion

Fig. 6. Curve marked by circles represents the far eld electric eld intensity divergence of a laser beam modulated by the nanoparticle antenna array settled in
SiO2. Curve marked by triangles represents the far eld electric intensity divergence of a laser beam modulated by the YagiUda antenna array.

Uda antenna array. For the performance of collimation, the Yagi

Uda antenna array is better than the nanoparticle antenna array.
The intensity, SNR and directivity are also improved. Meanwhile,
for TE polarized beam, the directivity is as high as D9.6.
Compared with the laser without a patterned exit facet, the TM
polarized beam collimated by nanoparticle antenna array achieves
the small divergence angle and high directivity. The reason is that
the surface plasmons wave excited at the laser exit port provides a
large number of beams with the same phase during the propagation process towards the two sides. The directivity of a YagiUda
antenna is better than that of a single nanoparticle antenna. A
YagiUda antenna array will denitely be better than a nanoparticle antenna array. The directors in the YagiUda antenna array
can induce more energy propagating towards the antenna transmitting direction. When the light scattering into space is compressed by the YagiUda antenna array, the laser has high SNR and
good directivity. For the TE polarized light, no signicant difference is observed for the case without pattern and with particles,
because no surface plasmons wave is excited. However, the scale
of YagiUda array in transmitting direction is much larger than
that of particles array. It constrained the light diffraction at the exit
facet by blocking much power from scattering into the wide space.
The directors of the YagiUda antenna array should be fabricated on substrates, such as PMMA and Borosilicate Glass. Here,
SiO2 was introduced as the substrate of the structure for numerical
calculation based on the overlay lithography technology. So, the
dielectric material in Fig. 2(a) and (b) is SiO2. The refractive index
of SiO2 is 1.457 at the wavelength of 633 nm. The length of the
feed is designed as 110 nm. The distances between the feed and
the directors are all 140 nm, while the distance between the feed
and the reectors is 110 nm. The array period is optimized as
700 nm. As shown in Fig. 6, the curve marked by circles represents
the divergence of the electric eld intensity of nanoparticle antenna arrays coated by SiO2. The line marked by triangles represents the electric intensity divergence of a laser with YagiUda
antenna arrays coated by SiO2. For the laser modulated by Yagi
Uda array in SiO2, the directivity D is approximately 13.2. Meanwhile, the divergence angle is 16, which is narrower than the
structure with particle array in SiO2 substrate. The larger divergence angle in SiO2 is mainly because of the refraction occurring at
the facet of SiO2 and free space. For example, when the propagating space is assumed as SiO2 and the YagiUda array is embedded in SiO2 substrate, the refraction will be obviously

Here, a periodic YagiUda antenna array is proposed to improve the divergence and directivity of the laser beam. Based on
Helmholtz's reciprocity theorem, the periodic nanoparticle optical
antenna array is optimized and calculated by FEM. The periodic
YagiUda antenna array with the feeds of the same size of the
nanoparticles can enhance the directivity and SNR, simultaneously. The directors of the YagiUda antenna array induce more
energy to propagate towards the antenna transmitting direction.
The YagiUda antenna array structure integrated on the exit facet
of a laser compresses the laser divergence angle to 8 with a SNR
larger than 5:1. The directivity is approximately 17. The antenna
array can be embedded in various dielectric materials such as SiO2.
The YagiUda antenna array can avoid the shortcomings existed in
the quantum dots excitation conguration. The results have shown
great potential of the collimated laser in domains such as detection, spatial communication and metrology.

Acknowledgments
This work is nancially funded by National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant no. 51275111) and the Program for
New Century Excellent Talents in University (Grant NECT100059).

References
[1] H. Aouani, O. Mahboub, N. Bonod, E. Devaux, E. Popov, H. Rigneault, T.
W. Ebbesen, J. Wenger, Bright unidirectional uorescence emission of molecules in a nanoaperture with plasmonic corrugations, Nano Lett. 11 (2011)
637644.
[2] L. Novotny, N. van Hulst, Antennas for light, Nat. Photon. 5 (2011) 8390.
[3] P. Bharadwaj, B. Deutsch, L. Novotny, Optical antennas, Adv. Opt. Photon 1
(2009) 438483.
[4] T.H. Taminiau, F.D. Stefani, F.B. Segerink, N.F. van Hulst, Optical antennas direct
single-molecule emission, Nat. Photon. 2 (2008) 234237.
[5] T. Shegai, V.D. Miljkovic, K. Bao, H. Xu, P. Nordlander, P. Johansson, M. Kall,
Unidirectional broadband light emission from supported plasmonic nanowires, Nano Lett. 11 (2011) 706711.
[6] Jerome Faist, Federico Capasso, Deborah Sivco, Carlo Sirtori, Albert
L. Hutchinson, Alfred Cho, Quantum cascade laser, Science 264 (1994)
553556.
[7] Alan Wei Min Lee, Qi Qin, Sushil Kumar, Benjamin S. Williams, Qing Hu, John
L. Reno, High-power and high-temperature THz quantum-cascade lasers based
on lens-coupled metal-metal waveguides, Opt. Lett. 32 (2007) 28402842.
[8] M.I. Amanti, M. Fischer, C. Walther, G. Scalari, J. Faist, Horn antennas for terahertz quantum cascade lasers, Electron. Lett. 43 (2007) 573574.
[9] M. Troccoli, C. Gmachl, F. Capasso, D.L. Sivco, A.Y. Cho, Mid-infrared
( 7.4 m) quantum cascade laser amplier for high power single-mode
emission and improved beam quality, Appl. Phys. Lett. 80 (2002) 4103.
[10] A.J. Liu, W. Chen, H.W. Qu, B. Jiang, W.J. Zhou, M.X. Xing, W.H. Zheng, Singlemode holey vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser with ultra-narrow beam
divergence, Laser Phys. Lett. 7 (2010) 213217.
[11] H.J. Lezec, A. Degiron, E. Devaux, R.A. Linke, L. Martin-Moreno, F.J. Garcia-Vidal,
T.W. Ebbesen, Beaming light from a subwavelength aperture, Science 297
(2002) 820822.
[12] Nanfang Yu, Jonathan Fan, Qi Jie Wang, Christian Pgl, Laurent Diehl,
Tadataka Edamura, Masamichi Yamanishi, Hirofumi Kan, Federico Capasso,
Small-divergence semiconductor lasers by plasmonic collimation, Nat. Photon.
2 (2008) 564570.
[13] Holger F. Hofmann, Terukazu Kosako, Yutaka Kadoya, Design parameters for a
nano-optical YagiUda antenna, New J. Phys. 9 (2007) 217.
[14] Terukazu Kosako, Yutaka Kadoya, Holger F. Hofmann, Directional control of

L. Ma et al. / Optics Communications 368 (2016) 197201

light by a nano-optical YagiUda antenna, Nat. Photon. 4 (2010) 312315.

[15] A. Femius Koenderink, Plasmon nanoparticle array waveguides for single
photon and single plasmon sources, Nano Lett. 9 (2009) 42284233.
[16] Jens Dorfmller, Daniel Dregely, Moritz Esslinger, Worawut Khunsin,
Ralf Vogelgesang, Klaus Kern, Harald Giessen, Near-eld dynamics of optical
YagiUda nanoantennas, Nano Lett. 11 (2011) 28192824.
[17] Alberto G. Curto, Giorgio Volpe, Tim H. Taminiau, Mark P. Kreuzer,
Romain Quidant, Niek F. van Hulst, Unidirectional emission of a quantum dot
coupled to a nanoantenna, Science 329 (2010) 930933.
[18] Daniel Dregely, Richard Taubert, Jens Dorfmuller, Ralf Vogelgesang,
Klaus Kern, Harald Giessen, 3D optical YagiUda nanoantenna array, Nat.
Commun. 2 (2011) 267.
[19] Toon Coenen, Ernst Jan R. Vesseur, Albert Polman, A. Femius Koenderink, Directional emission from plasmonic YagiUda antennas probed by angle-resolved cathodoluminescence spectroscopy, Nano Lett. 11 (2011) 37793784.

201

[20] S.V. Lobanov, T. Weiss, D. Dregely, H. Giessen, N.A. Gippius, S.G. Tikhodeev,
Emission properties of an oscillating point dipole from a gold YagiUda nanoantenna array, Phys. Rev. B 85 (2012) 155137.
[21] Tim H. Taminiau, Fernando D. Stefani, Niek F. van Hulst, Enhanced directional
excitation and emission of single emitters by a nano-optical YagiUda antenna, Opt. Exp. 16 (2008) 1085810866.
[22] L.B. Yu, D.Z. Lin, Y.C. Chen, Y.C. Chang, K.T. Huang, J.W. Liaw, J.T. Yeh, J.M. Liu, C.
S. Yeh, C.K. Lee, Physical origin of directional beaming emitted from a subwavelength slit, Phys. Rev. B 71 (2005) 041405.
[23] F.L. Tejeira, S.G. Rodrigo, L.M. Moreno, F.J. Garcia-Vidal, E. Devaux, J. Dintinger,
T.W. Ebbesen, J.R. Krenn, I.P. Radko, S.I. Bozhevolnyi, M.U. Gonzalez, J.
C. Weeber, A. Dereux, Efcient unidirectional nanoslit couplers for surface
plasmons, Nat. Phys. 3 (5) (2007) 324328.
[24] W.L. Stutzman, G.A. Thiele, Antenna Theory and Design, John Wiley & Sons,
New York, 1981.