Plasmon scattering from holes: from single hole scattering to Young’s experiment

Wang, Tao; Boer-Duchemin, Elizabeth; Comtet, G.; Moal, Eric Le; Dujardin, Gérald; Drezet, Aurélien; Huant, S.

doi:10.1088/0957-4484/25/12/125202

Cited by 15 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…This may be understood by considering the hole analogous to a particle in the Mie theory of scattering. 29 4.2 Double hole scattering-Young's experiment Figure 7 shows the results of the experiment when the tip excites an outgoing circular plasmon wave in the vicinity of two 1 µm diameter holes. As in the single hole case, the scattered light is seen to be very directional in the Fourier plane images.…”

Section: Single Hole Scatteringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local low-energy electrical excitation of localized and propagating surface plasmons with a scanning tunneling microscope

et al. 2014

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The highly confined nature of the fields from surface plasmons makes them excellent candidates for future nano-optical devices. Most often, optical excitation is used to excite surface plasmons. However, a local, low energy, electrical method for surface plasmon excitation would be preferable for device applications.The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is an ideal, low energy, local source of electrons that can excite both localized (LSP) and propagating surface plasmons (SPP). Its local nature, along with the ability to precisely position the excitation source and the absence of any background light from the excitation are essential for our experiments. We have used this technique to locally excite surface plasmons on a variety of metal structures. In our setup, the STM is coupled to an inverted optical microscope and the resulting emitted light is collected through the glass substrate. In such a configuration, both the light emitted from localized plasmons as well as the leakage radiation from propagating surface plasmons may be recorded. Both real plane (spatial information) and Fourier plane (angular information) images may be obtained, as well as emission spectra.In this article we will present the results of STM-SPP excitation on thin Au films on glass and investigate the effect of Au film thickness on the SPP propagation length. These results demonstrate the unique features of STM-excited SPPs: the STM plasmon source may be considered equivalent to a series of oscillating vertical point dipoles, and the resulting plasmons consist of a 2D circular wave with a broadband spectrum. These properties are then exploited to study how SPPs scatter into photons from super and sub-wavelength sized holes. It is found that the larger the hole diameter, the more directional the scattering light. From a type of SPP-Young's experiment we determine that the orientation of the electric field is maintained when SPPs are scattered into photons at holes.

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Section: Single Hole Scatteringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local low-energy electrical excitation of localized and propagating surface plasmons with a scanning tunneling microscope

et al. 2014

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“…The STM is an excellent (quasi-)point source of polychromatic propagating surface plasmons, and produces an outgoing circular broadband surface plasmon polariton wave with a dispersion curve typical of that which is found for SPPs on metal films [10,13,14]. In this work, we perform a variant of Young's double-slit experiment, using a gold film perforated by two 1-μm-diameter holes.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs)-collective oscillations of surface electrons coupled to an electromagnetic wave-are in turn being studied for their potential applications at the nanoscale. While the quantum interference [1][2][3][4] and the spatial coherence [5][6][7][8][9][10] of surface plasmons have been investigated recently, the temporal coherence of propagating surface plasmons has been relatively ignored.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The interfering light thus originates from the STM-excited plasmon wave and a slightly delayed version of itself. An analytical calculation of the plasmon fields modeling the hole as a series of horizontal dipoles whose amplitudes and phases depend on the incident plasmon field [10,17] shows that the plasmon-to-plasmon scattering at the 1-μm hole is strongly peaked in the forward direction [see Fig. 1…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fringe spacing is directly related to the distance separating the two holes, as expected in a typical Young's double-slit experiment. The maximum of intensity is not located in the center of the image, since plasmons are strongly forward scattered into photons at 1-μm-diameter holes [10]. In parts (a)-(d), a 13-nm-wide bandpass filter centered at 700 nm is placed before the CCD camera, thus greatly narrowing the typical STM-excited plasmon emission spectrum on gold (see the blue curve in Fig.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Temporal coherence of propagating surface plasmons

et al. 2014

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The temporal coherence of propagating surface plasmons is investigated using a local, broadband plasmon source consisting of a scanning tunneling microscope. A variant of Young's experiment is performed using a sample consisting of a 200-nm-thick gold film perforated by two 1-μm-diameter holes (separated by 4 or 6 μm). The resulting interference fringes are studied as a function of hole separation and source bandwidth. From these experiments, we conclude that apart from plasmon decay in the metal, there is no further loss of plasmon coherence from propagation, scattering at holes, or other dephasing processes. As a result, the plasmon coherence time may be estimated from its spectral bandwidth.

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Coherence Between Different Propagating Surface Plasmon Polariton Modes Excited by Quantum Mechanical Tunnel Junctions

Radulescu

Kalathingal

Wang

et al. 2021

Advanced Optical Materials

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imaging [5] and sensing [6] for biological species, and for spatial differentiation and edge detection without optical lenses that perform the Fourier transform, [7,8] to name a few. SPPs are coherent due to the collective nature of free electron oscillations [9] and are bound to the metal-dielectric interfaces which provides unrivalled field confinement at the nanoscale, [10] opening up a plethora of applications ranging from sensing [11] to quantum information processing. [12,13] Plasmonic metal-insulator-metal tunnel junctions (MIM-TJs) offer a unique platform for the electrical excitation of SPPs by low energy (<2.5 eV) tunneling electrons [14][15][16][17][18] because of their nanoscale footprint and potential for device-integration for subwavelength imaging, or nano-optoelectronics. [19,20] In MIM-TJs, the SPP or photon emission originates from a three-step outcoupling process in which, first, the energy quanta (ℏω) given off by inelastically tunneling electrons can couple predominantly to a highly-confined cavity mode (MIM-SPP, [18] Figure 1a), which then outcouples to SPPs and finally to photons. [21] Here we show that this entire three-step process remains coherent as the excitation originates from a single inelastic tunneling event and is important for areas of research where spatially correlated and actively modulated sources are essential, such as, plasmonic interferometry, [22] plasmonic analogue of quantum optics Coherence between different surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes excited by inelastically tunneling electrons in biased metal-insulator-metal tunnel junctions (MIM-TJs) is demonstrated. By employing a dedicated SPP stripe waveguide with MIM-TJ, an effective double-slit configuration similar to the Young's experiment is realized for an electrically biased SPP source. The spatial correlation between different SPP modes originates from a single inelastic tunneling event and leads to strong interference in the far-field, observed as alternate bright and dark fringes in the Fourier plane. The measured fringe-spacing inversely follows the stripe waveguide length, with upper limit dictated by the SPP propagation length, confirming the SPP mediated spatial correlation. Finite difference time domain simulations support the experimental findings. Also, the experimental and simulation results unambiguously demonstrate the two-step plasmonic decay process in plasmonic MIM-TJs. The results presented here provide a simple and robust demonstration of the inherent coherence existing between different decay channels (plasmons and photons) of the inelastically tunneling electrons and can be exploited for plasmonic applications with tailored spatial coherence with implications in plasmon amplification and quantum information processing.

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Plasmon scattering from holes: from single hole scattering to Young’s experiment

Cited by 15 publications

References 46 publications

Local low-energy electrical excitation of localized and propagating surface plasmons with a scanning tunneling microscope

Local low-energy electrical excitation of localized and propagating surface plasmons with a scanning tunneling microscope

Temporal coherence of propagating surface plasmons

Coherence Between Different Propagating Surface Plasmon Polariton Modes Excited by Quantum Mechanical Tunnel Junctions

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