Two-photon mapping of localized field enhancements in thin nanostrip antennas

Resonant scattering and local field enhancements by 11-nm-thin gold nanostrip antennas due to constructive interference of counter propagating slow surface plasmon polaritons is investigated. We characterize nanostrips of widths between 50-530 nm using both reflection spectroscopy and nonlinear scanning optical microscopy, in which two-photon-excited photoluminescence (TPL) excited with a strongly focused laser beam at the wavelength 745 nm is detected. We use TPL images to map the local field enhancements from individual nanostrips at a resolution of 0.35 microm and compare results with theoretical calculated reflection spectra, enhancement levels and field distributions across the strip.