LAUSR

Electron beam spectroscopy has recently attracted much attention in the modal analysis of nanophotonic and plasmonic systems. In principle, electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) provides information about the electromagnetic local density of states of all sorts of electromagnetic modes as well as nonradiative modes. However, there have not been many examples related to the EELS analyses for electromagnetic Bloch modes. Herein, EELS measurements are performed for the characterization of nonradiative band-edge modes facing the first bandgap in a plasmonic crystal with a triangular lattice, which is well-known for its full bandgap formation. The obtained spectrum images clearly determine the characteristics of the lower and upper band-edge modes, compared with an analytical model based on group theory and a numerical simulation by the finite-difference time-domain method. The EELS spectra also reveal differences in the plasmonic density of states between the lower and upper band-edges, which provides info...