Enhancement of Raman scattering of a gaseous medium near the surface of a silver holographic grating

Opt Lett. 2017 Nov 15;42(22):4728-4731. doi: 10.1364/OL.42.004728.

Abstract

The Letter demonstrates a possibility to enhance the Raman scattering of a gaseous medium due to an enhanced electromagnetic field caused by the excitation of propagating surface plasmon polaritons (PSPPs) on a silver holographic grating. Efficiency of collinear and noncollinear schemes of PSPP excitation on a metal-gaseous medium interface was studied. When using a collinear scheme, we registered an eightfold enhancement of the Raman scattering of atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen, where the average gain near the PSPP-active surface was ∼4×103.