Titanium nano-antenna for high-power pulsed operation

While plasmonic nano-antennas can produce intense electric fields in a very small area, in general, these devices cannot handle high power, because of their small footprints. In order to increase the maximum peak power that these devices can withstand, they can be driven by nano-second pulses from a larger diameter Q-switched laser, which reduces the fluence reaching the devices, thus avoiding their destruction. Furthermore, we show that an increase in the power density capacity of the nano-antennas can be achieved by replacing gold with titanium: more than 18 dB greater power density can be handled by titanium based nano-antennas without significant reduction in their electric field enhancement capabilities.