Near-field spectroscopy and tuning of sub-surface modes in plasmonic terahertz resonators

Highly confined modes in THz plasmonic resonators comprising two metallic elements can enhance light-matter interaction for efficient THz optoelectronic devices. We demonstrate that sub-surface modes in such double-metal resonators can be revealed with an aperture-type near-field probe and THz time-domain spectroscopy despite strong mode confinement in the dielectric spacer. The sub-surface modes couple a fraction of their energy to the resonator surface via surface waves, which we detected with the near-field probe. We investigated two resonator geometries: a λ/2 double-metal patch antenna with a 2 μm thick dielectric spacer, and a three-dimensional meta-atom resonator. THz time-domain spectroscopy analysis of the fields at the resonator surface displays spectral signatures of sub-surface modes. Investigations of strong light-matter coupling in resonators with sub-surface modes therefore can be assisted by the aperture-type THz near-field probes. Furthermore, near-field interaction of the probe with the resonator enables tuning of the resonance frequency for the spacer mode in the antenna geometry from 1.6 to 1.9 THz (~15%).