Surface-plasmon-enhanced strain-wave-induced optical diffraction changes from a segmented grating

We report on surface-plasmon-polariton-enhanced (SPP-enhanced), strain-wave-induced reflection and diffraction changes on a Au-covered, segmented grating. The segmented grating has a 6020 nm period, and its lines are segmented into 7 periods of a 430 nm period grating, which allows the excitation of SPPs. This grating has three SPP resonances at different optical wavelengths, for the same incident angle. Pump-pulse-induced strain waves are probed by measuring reflection and diffraction of a tunable probe pulse in a wavelength range that includes all three SPP resonances. Surface Acoustic Waves (SAWs) and Longitudinal Waves (LWs) are identified. When probing close to SPP resonances, the reflection changes from SAWs and LWs are strongly enhanced by factors of 23 and 36, respectively, compared with reflection changes observed when probing at off-resonance wavelengths. The relative SAW- and LW-induced diffraction changes are larger by additional factors of up to 3.3 and 2.6, respectively, compared to the reflection changes.