Tamm Plasmons in TiO2 Nanotube Photonic Crystals

The anodic TiO2 photonic crystals evoke great interest for application as photocatalytic media due to high absorption of light resuling from their specific structure. In this work, the optical properties of the photonic crystal based on a bamboo-type TiO2 nanotube with a metallic coating are analyzed theoretically by the finite-difference time-domain method. The occurrence of Tamm plasmons that appears as a peak in the absorption spectrum is predicted. A Tamm plasmon polariton is a localized state of light excited at the boundary of two highly reflective media, a metal and a Bragg reflector. The integral absorption of the gold-, titanium-, and titanium nitride-coated photonic crystals in the wavelength range of 450–600 nm is calculated. It is established that the titanium nitride-coated structure exhibits the maximum integral absorption.