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    Metal nanostructures supporting surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes are considered for nanophotonic applications, including nano-sized strip and gap resonant antennas making use of slow SPPs and waveguide components using dielectric-loaded and channel SPPs.
    Nanophotonics
    Waveguide
    Localized surface plasmon
    Citations (0)
    Plasmonic nanostructures, which are used to generate surface plasmon polaritions (SPPs), always involve sharp corners where the charges can accumulate.This can result in strong localized electromagnetic fields at the metallic corners, forming hot spots.The influence of the hot spots on the propagating SPPs are investigated theoretically and experimentally in a metallic slit structure.It is found that the electromagnetic fields radiated from the hot spots, termed as the hot spot cylindrical wave (HSCW), can greatly manipulate the SPP launching in the slit structure.The physical mechanism behind the manipulation of the SPP launching with the HSCW is explicated by a semi-analytic model.By using the HSCW, unidirectional SPP launching is experimentally realized in an ultra-small metallic step-slit structure.The HSCW bridges the localized surface plasmons and the propagating surface plasmons in an integrated platform and thus may pave a new route to the design of plasmonic devices and circuits.
    Slit
    Plasmonic lens
    Localized surface plasmon
    We study a structure consisting of a gold disk array, an SiO2 spacer, and a gold film. We study the effect of spacer thickness on the anti-crossing between localized plasmons and surface plasmon polaritons.
    Localized surface plasmon
    Citations (2)
    The characteristics of surface plasmon polaritons at a chiral-metal interface are analyzed in detail. Compared to conventional surface plasmon waves at a dielectric-metal interface, it is shown that chiral surface plasmon waves have distinguishing features such as the presence of an s-wave at the metal surface, the existence of a cutoff frequency and chirality value, and the dependence of the propagation length on the chiral parameter. These properties of chiral surface plasmon waves can be exploited for on-chip chiral sensing and enantiometric detection applications.
    Localized surface plasmon
    Interface (matter)
    Citations (52)
    We demonstrate the excitation control of long-range surface plasmon polaritons (LRSPs) by experiments and simulations. We find that LRSPs and short-range surface plasmon polaritons can be selectively excited by two incident beams. This mechanism enables us to realize the excitation control of LRSPs using the phase difference or the intensity ratio between the two input signals. The excitation method analyzed here can be applied to active plasmonic devices based on LRSPs.
    Ray
    Localized surface plasmon
    Plasmonic lens
    Citations (16)

    Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are an electromagnetic mode in which an external light field interacts with the free electrons on a metal surface. When light is incident on the surface of the metal and dielectric, the collective free electrons oscillate on the surface of the metal owing to the incident light excitation effect. This causes the coupling of light and free electrons on the surface of the metal and the spread of the media surface along a conductor, which is constrained and attenuated in the vertical direction at the interface. The surface plasmon polaritons have strong near-field electromagnetic field characteristics showing strong interactions with nanostructures especially with nanomaterials composed of delicate structures. Because the diffraction limit can be exceeded and the nano-level sub-wavelength spot can be formed in the near- field region, it is of great significance to design optical near-field focusing devices. Different from the widely studied toroidal, elliptical, and helical surface plasmon focusing lenses, a surface plasmon polaritons focusing lens composed of rectangular slits is designed, and its near field mode is studied. In the case of incident light excitation, the propagating direction of the surface plasmon polaritons is always perpendicular to the long axis of the rectangular slit. When the rectangular slit rotates on the surface of the metal, it can produce an optical electrical field with a controllable geometric phase, which can be used to manipulate the near electrical field. The rectangular slit not only modulates the optical electrical field in terms of its depth, length, and width as toroidal, elliptical, and helical units do but also produces another kind of phase manipulation in terms of its axis orientation, which enriches the means of light field manipulation. In brief, a single rectangular slit generates SPPs, and then coherent interference occurs in the process of propagating towards the center of the circle. Its size and spatial position are related to the number of lens slits and the size of the lens. In this paper, finite difference time domain method is used to calculate the electric field intensity of the structure. By analyzing the finite difference time domain simulation results, we find that the lens focuses best when the size and number of the lens slits causes the interference ring to disappear. In addition, we can use the simplest coherent interference model to explain the interference bright ring pattern, with the strongest envelope at a specific location in the internal surface plasmon polaritons focusing lens. Although it is difficult to get the analytic solution of the strongest interference bright ring, the interference model used in this paper is self-consistent and can be used to verify the accuracy of the empirical formula obtained from the finite difference time domain simulation results. By adjusting the spatial rotation angle of each slit, the geometric phase of the SPPs can be generated, and the central focusing of the SPPs focusing lens can be finally realized. The focusing effect is the best when the interference ring disappears. This paper provides a new idea for the design of a surface plasmon polaritons focusing lens. The surface plasmon polaritons focusing lens in this paper connects the geometric phase to near field focusing; this gives us an enhanced understanding of geometric phase and provides a new direction for the combination of surface plasmon polaritons and topology.

    Ray
    Localized surface plasmon
    Nanophotonics
    Free electron model
    Citations (0)
    Surface plasmon polaritons may induce a spatially modulated heat profile, which can cause the formation of laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS). This contribution summarizes theoretical approaches and experimental verifications at different laser fluence regimes.
    Nanophotonics
    Localized surface plasmon
    The purpose of this tutorial is to give a practical introduction to surface plasmon nanophotonics. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are introduced as a waveguide mode at a single interface. It is shown how SPPs in nanostructures can both concentrate the local field intensity and shorten the optical wavelength. Localised surface plasmons (LSPs) are introduced and described using the quasi-static approximation. It is shown how LSPs lead to local field enhancement, which may be further cascaded to achieve additional enhancement. A brief discussion of six application areas of surface plasmon nanophotonics is given: surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensing, SERS, enhanced fluorescence, nonlinear optics, nanolithography and sub-wavelength imaging, and optical trapping.
    Nanophotonics
    Localized surface plasmon
    Citations (45)