Light scattering on nanowire antennas: A semi-analytical approach

A new semi-analytical approach to solve the problem of light scattering on long nano-cylinders is developed. The derivation is based on the exact solution of the plane wave scattering problem in case of an infinite cylinder. We show that the original three-dimensional problem can be reduced to a simple one-dimensional integral equation, which can be solved numerically by a method of moments (MoM) approach. Scattering cross sections of gold nanowire antennas with different lengths and aspect ratios are presented for optical and near-infrared spectral range. Comparison of the proposed method with direct numerical finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations demonstrates very good agreement as well as superior performance of the new semi-analytical approach.