Zero-mode waveguides can be made better with optimized rectangle shapes

Zero-mode waveguide metal nanoapertures are receiving a large interest owing to their ability to confine light at the nanoscale and enhance the fluorescence emission from single molecules. However, the interest for more advanced geometries beyond the vanilla circular shape remains badly understood.

In a recent publication in Nanoscale Advances, introduce a rational design for rectangular nanoapertures, and demonstrate how this optimized shape outperforms the classical circular zero-mode waveguides both in the visible and in the deep UV.

Significance:

- Rectangular nanoapertures provide 50% brighter photon count rates together with shorter lifetimes as compared to their circular counterparts.

- We derive clear design parameters related to physical concepts.

- We achieve the highest fluorescence enhancement reported so far for deep UV plasmonics.

All our papers are freely available on either HAL or ArXiv repositories, check our publication page for direct free (legal!) links. For this one: HAL 02942985