Miniaturized fractal optical nanoantennas defined by focused helium ion beam milling

It has been shown in the past that fractal geometries are beneficial for radio and communication antenna designs in terms of bandwidth and gain. Recently, this concept was extended to plasmonic nanoantennas. Here, we present a fabrication method based on electron beam lithography and focused helium ion beam milling to further miniaturize dimer nanoantennas of 0th, 1st and 2nd order Sierpiński fractals. With this state-of-the-art approach, it becomes feasible to experimentally move their resonance conditions into the sub-micron wavelength regime, while maintaining excellent pattern definition and achieving sub-10 nm gap sizes for high near-field enhancement. These highly sophisticated nanostructures are numerically simulated and analyzed by dark-field scattering spectroscopy to monitor the effects of the fractal structuring on the scattering spectra and near-field enhancement. (paper)