Wave interference is a fundamental manifestation of the superposition principle with numerous applications. While in conventional optics interference occurs between waves undergoing different phase advances during propagation, we show that the vectorial structure of the near-field of an emitter is essential for controlling its radiation as it interferes with itself on interaction with a mediating object. We demonstrate that the near field interference of a circularly polarized dipole results in the unidirectional excitation of guided electromagnetic modes in the near-field, with no preferred far-field radiation direction. By mimicking the dipole with a single illuminated slit in a gold film, we measured unidirectional surface-plasmon excitation in a spatially symmetric structure. The surface wave direction is switchable with the polarization.Interference is the cornerstone of various phenomena in nature enabling numerous applications. In optics, it is intensively used in microscopy, stellar measurements, spectroscopy, and communication technologies, among many others, and is the basis behind the concepts of reflection, refraction and light bending (1, 2). Typically, interference occurs due to the relative phase lag of different propagating waves. On the other hand, nanophotonics -the branch of optics studying the interaction of light with subwavelength nanoscale structures-deals inherently with phenomena that occur via near-field interactions before appreciable phase lags can be accumulated (3). A radiationless form of interference in the near field (4) is behind new exciting applications such as the focusing of evanescent components to achieve subwavelength resolution in imaging (5-8). Near field interference achieved through the full coherent control of the phase and amplitude of excitation light allows asymmetric spatial field localization (9, 10) and selection of propagation paths at intersections of waveguides (11).We demonstrate near field interference by considering a single source of radiation coupled to a mode with a vectorial structure of electromagnetic field. Using an additional degree of freedom provided by the vectorial character of the field, control over the near-field interference can be achieved. We show that an elliptically polarized dipole can produce destructive or constructive interference of different evanescent components in its near field, and as a result, excite electromagnetic modes in neighbouring material structures, such as dielectric and plasmonic waveguides and diffraction gratings, with a controlled directionality of propagation.

The spin Hall effect leads to the separation of electrons with opposite spins in different directions perpendicular to the electric current flow because of interaction between spin and orbital angular momenta. Similarly, photons with opposite spins (different handedness of circular light polarization) may take different trajectories when interacting with metasurfaces that break spatial inversion symmetry or when the inversion symmetry is broken by the radiation of a dipole near an interface. Here we demonstrate a reciprocal effect of spin-orbit coupling when the direction of propagation of a surface plasmon wave, which intrinsically has unusual transverse spin, determines a scattering direction of spin-carrying photons. This spin-orbit coupling effect is an optical analogue of the spin injection in solid-state spintronic devices (inverse spin Hall effect) and may be important for optical information processing, quantum optical technology and topological surface metrology.

The requirements for spatial and temporal manipulation of electromagnetic fields on the nanoscale have recently resulted in an ever-increasing use of plasmonics for achieving various functionalities with superior performance to those available from conventional photonics. For these applications, ohmic losses resulting from free-electron scattering in the metal is one major limitation for the performance of plasmonic structures. In the low-frequency regime, ohmic losses can be reduced at low temperatures. In this work, we study the effect of temperature on the optical response of different plasmonic nanostructures and show that the extinction of a plasmonic nanorod metamaterial can be efficiently controlled with temperature with transmission changes by nearly a factor of 10 between room and liquid nitrogen temperatures, while temperature effects in plasmonic crystals are relatively weak (transmission changes only up to 20%). Because of the different nature of the plasmonic interactions in these types of plasmonic nanostructures, drastically differing responses (increased or decreased extinction) to temperature change were observed despite identical variations of the metal's permittivity.

We demonstrate that the coupling between plasmonic modes of oriented metallic nanorods results in the formation of an extended (guided) plasmonic mode of the nanorod array. The electromagnetic field distribution associated to this mode is found to be concentrated between the nanorods within the assembly and propagates normally to the nanorod long axes, similar to a photonic mode waveguided by an anisotropic slab. This collective plasmonic mode determines the optical properties of nanorod assemblies and can be tuned in a wide spectral range by changing the nanorod array geometry. This geometry represents a unique opportunity for light guiding applications and manipulation at the nanoscale as well as sensing applications and development of molecular plasmonic devices.