Abstract

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are bosonic quasiparticles. In the last ten years, several groups have reproduced fundamental quantum optics experiments with surface plasmons. Observation of single-plasmon states, waveparticle duality, preservation of entanglement of photons in plasmon-assisted transmission [1,2], and more recently, two-plasmon interference has been reported, revisiting with success the famous Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) experiment[ 3]. Here we report the observation of two-plasmon quantum interference between two freely-propagating, non-guided SPPs interfering on lossy plasmonic beamsplitters. We find that, depending on the beamsplitter features, the reults of the experiment can be very different.

© 2017 IEEE