Abstract
The excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) by focusing a laser beam on single subwavelength holes opened in a thin gold film is studied both experimentally and theoretically. By means of leakage radiation microscopy, quantitative measurements of the light-SPP coupling efficiency are performed for holes with different sizes and shapes. The system is studied theoretically by using a modal expansion method to calculate the fraction of the incident energy which is scattered by the hole into a surface plasmon. We demonstrate that a single subwavelength hole can be used to generate SPP with an efficiency up to 28%.
Highlights
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) have attracted increasing attention in the last decades, mainly as these electromagnetic waves propagating at the interface between a metal and a dielectric are spatially confined beyond the diffraction limit
Many studies have been performed on passive devices like plasmon-guides [1], -mirrors [2] or -lenses [3], but a remaining key point is to develop a highly integrated plasmon source. Various structures such as gratings [4, 5], slits [6, 23, 7], ridges [8] or single defects [9, 10] on a metallic film have been recently investigating for SPP excitation
For a SPP propagating in all directions at the gold-air interface, the corresponding leakage radiation is distributed over a cone with its axis perpendicular to the substrate plane and an opening angle of θLR
Summary
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) have attracted increasing attention in the last decades, mainly as these electromagnetic waves propagating at the interface between a metal and a dielectric are spatially confined beyond the diffraction limit This characteristic is the basis for the development of new plasmonic devices. Many studies have been performed on passive devices like plasmon-guides [1], -mirrors [2] or -lenses [3], but a remaining key point is to develop a highly integrated plasmon source Various structures such as gratings [4, 5], slits [6, 23, 7], ridges [8] or single defects [9, 10] on a metallic film have been recently investigating for SPP excitation. These calculations are compared to the experimental results and the agreement is discussed
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