Radiation pattern of plasmonic nano-antennas in a homogeneous medium.

Radiation patterns from plasmonic nano-antennas formed on a glass substrate were investigated using index-matching oils. It was confirmed that the pattern from single nano-antennas for various cases of index-mismatching between the substrate and the oil is explained well by the patterns of infinitesimal electric dipoles. We found that for an angular resolution of 2°, the index mismatch must be smaller than 0.001 to realize isotropic radiation. By using the appropriate condition, the radiation patterns of nano Yagi-Uda antennas in a quasi-homogeneous medium were obtained experimentally.