Creating V-shaped optical antennas

This paper experimentally shows that it is possible to create V-shaped optical antennas by a method based on carbon deposition controlled by a focused electron beam. The resulting structures consisted of pairs of close-spaced carbon nanorods coated with a gold layer. The electrodynamics of the V-shaped antennas have been theoretically studied by the method of finite differences in the temporal region. It is shown that the given structures can create a strong electromagnetic field in the region of the gap between the nanorods under the incidence of a light wave in the visible and IR regions. V-shaped antennas can be used as probes in near-field optical microscopy and spectroscopy. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America.