Date of Award
Fall 2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Electrical Engineering
First Advisor
Lee, Chung Hoon
Second Advisor
Richie, James E.
Third Advisor
Yaz, Edwin E.
Fourth Advisor
Koch, Benjamin R.
Abstract
Optimization of the geometry of a metallic bowtie gap at radio frequency is presented in this thesis. Since the design and fabrication of a plasmonic device (nanogap) at nanoscale is challenging, the results of this study can be used to estimate the best design parameters for nanogap structure. The geometry of the bowtie gap including gap size, tip width, metal thickness, and tip angle are investigated at macroscale to find the maximum electric field enhancement across the gap. This thesis focuses on the simulation portion of a work that consists of experimental and simulation platforms. The simulation platform is created by NEC modeling system using antenna segments. The results indicate that 90° bowtie with 0.06 λ gap size has the most |Et|2 enhancement. Different amounts of enhancement at different frequency ranges are explained by mode volume. The product of the mode volume and |Et|2 enhancement is constant for different gap structures and different frequencies.