Research progress of femtosecond surface plasmon polariton**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 91750205, 61427819, U1701661, 11674178, and 61975128), the Leading Talents of Guangdong Province Program, China (Grant No. 00201505), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (Grant Nos. 2016A030312010 and 2017A030313351), the Science and Technology Innovation Commission of Shenzhen City (Grant Nos. JCYJ20180507182035270, KQTD2017033011044403, KQJSCX20170727100838364, ZDSYS201703031605029, and JCYJ2017818144338999), and the K. C. Wong Education Foundation (Grant No. GJTD-2018-08).

Abstract

As the combination of surface plasmon polariton and femtosecond laser pulse, femtosecond surface plasmon polariton has both nanoscale spatial resolution and femtosecond temporal resolution, and thus provides promising methods for light field manipulation and light–matter interaction in extreme small spatiotemporal scales. Nowadays, the research on femtosecond surface plasmon polariton is mainly concentrated on two aspects: one is investigation and characterization of excitation, propagation, and dispersion properties of femtosecond surface plasmon polariton in different structures or materials; the other one is developing new applications based on its unique properties in the fields of nonlinear enhancement, pulse shaping, spatiotemporal super-resolved imaging, and others. Here, we introduce the research progress of properties and applications of femtosecond surface plasmon polariton, and prospect its future research trends. With the further development of femtosecond surface plasmon polariton research, it will have a profound impact on nano-optoelectronics, molecular dynamics, biomedicine and other fields.