Directional light emission from propagating surface plasmons of silver nanowires

Thin metallic nanowires are highly promising candidates for plasmonic waveguides in photonic and electronic devices. We have observed that light from the end of a silver nanowire, following excitation of plasmons at the other end of the wire, is emitted in a cone of angles peaking at nominally 45-60 degrees from the nanowire axis, with virtually no light emitted along the direction of the nanowire. This surprising characteristic can be explained in a simple picture invoking Fabry-Perot resonances of the forward- and back-propagating plasmons on the nanowire. This strongly angular-dependent emission is a critical property that must be considered when designing coupled nanowire-based photonic devices and systems.