Field enhancement effect of metal probe in evanescent field

Field enhancement effect of metal probe in evanescent field, induced by using a multi-layers structure for exciting surface plasmon resonance (SPR), is analyzed numerically by utilizing two-dimensional (2D) TM-wave finite difference time-domain (FDTD) method. In this letter, we used a fundamental mode Gaussian beam to induce evanescent field, and calculated the electric intensity. The results show that compared with the nonmetal probe, the metal probe has a larger field enhancement effect, and its scattering wave induced by field enhancement has a bigger decay coefficient. The field enhancement effect should conclude that the metal probe has an important application in nanolithography.