Polarization-dependent transmittance of concentric ring plasmonic lens: a polarizing interference investigation

Plasmonic lenses are widely applied to manipulate optical phase or polarization distribution in the near and far field, but its polarization-dependent optical anisotropy is seldomly reported. Not only the plasmonic mode (excited by transverse magnetic polarization), but also the photonic mode (excited by transverse electric polarization) has an effect on the field distribution. In this paper, polarization-dependent optical anisotropy of concentric ring plasmonic lens has been investigated with polarizing microscope and explained by polarizing interference theoretical model. Moreover, several kinds of plasmonic lenses are mutually compared and dramatic different optical anisotropy is found. Our work bears a fundamental importance in design of micro-nano-devices as well as provides the potential to advance the applications of polarizing interferometry into plasmonic structure characterization.