A side-illuminated plasmonic planar lens

Abstract

Planar lens based on nanoscale slits has been demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. In this paper, we propose a 2D model of a similar planar lens but with side-illumination. The lens consists of a main bus waveguide to transport plasmonic wave and grooves functioning as antennas. The shapes and filling materials of the waveguide and grooves are assumed to be invariant in the third direction. The phase retardation needed for wavefront shaping comes from the transverse propagation of the plasmonic wave in the waveguide and the well-designed groove positions. The concept is applied to the design of planar lenses and axicons. The simulation results demonstrate that such structures can work as good diffractive elements. The side-illumination property of such structure enables the potential integration of lens on chip.