Abstract

A method is reported for exciting surface-plasmon polaritons with a focused laser beam as the excitation probe. We calculate the electric-field intensity distribution on a silver surface that is due to the excited surface-plasmon polaritons. We find that polaritons are locally excited over an area that approximates the spot size of the focused beam. We also find that the field distribution is strongly influenced by polarization of the incident light. Our theoretical findings are experimentally confirmed by measuring the scattered light that is produced when a microsphere is scanned (from the air side) across a silver surface that is being probed for surface-plasmon polaritons.

© 1998 Optical Society of America

Efficiency of surface-plasmon-polariton focusing by curved chains of nanoparticles

A. B. Evlyukhin, A. L. Stepanov, R. Kiyan, and B. N. Chichkov
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 25(6) 1011-1015 (2008)

Excitation of surface-plasmon polaritons by use of a zeroth-order Bessel beam

Hiroshi Kano, Dai Nomura, and Haruki Shibuya
Appl. Opt. 43(12) 2409-2411 (2004)

Efficient excitation and control of arbitrary surface plasmon polariton beams using one-dimensional metallic gratings

Doron Bar-Lev, Ady Arie, Jacob Scheuer, and Itai Epstein
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 32(5) 923-932 (2015)

Mode-selective excitation of laser-written dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides

Carsten Reinhardt, Andreas Seidel, Andrey B. Evlyukhin, Wei Cheng, and Boris N. Chichkov
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 26(12) B55-B60 (2009)

Imaging of terahertz surface plasmon waves excited on a gold surface by a focused beam

Raimund Mueckstein and Oleg Mitrofanov
Opt. Express 19(4) 3212-3217 (2011)