Consequently, the simulation toolboxes usually employed in the field are not specifically designed for plasmonics applications. Simulation of particle plasmons is nothing but the solution of Maxwellʼs equations for metallic nanoparticles embedded in a dielectric environment. Particle plasmons enable the concentration of light fields to nanoscale volumes and play a key role in surface enhanced spectroscopy, ,. The properties of these excitations depend strongly on particle geometry and interparticle coupling, and give rise to a variety of effects, such as frequency-dependent absorption and scattering or near field enhancement. Of particular interest are particle plasmons, these are surface plasmons confined in all three spatial dimensions to the surface of a nanoparticle. This can be exploited for (bio)sensor applications, eventually bringing the sensitivity down to the single-molecule level.
induced by binding of molecules to a functionalized metal surface, can significantly modify the evanescent fields and, in turn, the surface plasmon resonances. On the other hand, tiny variations of the dielectric environment close to the nanostructures, e.g. These surface plasmons come along with strongly localized, so-called evanescent electromagnetic fields, which can be exploited for bringing light down to the nanoscale, thereby overcoming the diffraction limit of light and bridging between the micrometer length scale of optics and the nanometer length scale of nanostructures. The workhorse of plasmonics are surface plasmons, these are coherent electron charge oscillations bound to the interface between a metal and a dielectric. Examples including results and ready-to-run simulations ( Examples)įeedback, comments or questions that may help improving this website or the use of SimSonic are welcome at Frequently asked questions will be regularly published and listed in the corresponding section ( FAQ).Plasmonics is an emerging field with numerous applications foreseen, ranging from sensorics over extreme light concentration and light harvesting to optical and quantum technology, as well as metamaterials and optical cloaking, ,.Matlab toolboxes to easily handle input and output files ( Downloads).
In exchange for free access to the SimSonic suite, the users are asked to make proper references, in their research publications or any other types of oral or written communications, to and to Bossy et al, JASA 115, 2314-2324, 2004 (see References).
The SimSonic suite consists of several compiled programs and C source codes, free for use, under the GNU GPL license (please see Copyrights). It is intended as a tool for researchers, teachers and students communities.
SimSonic is freely available 3rd party software suite for the simulation of ultrasound propagation, based on finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) computations of the elastodynamic equations.