Surface plasmons in the Young slit doublet experiment

Sylvain Ravets (1) , Jean-Claude Rodier (1) , Buntha Ea-Kim (1) , Jean-Paul Hugonin (1) , Lionel Jacubowiez (1) , Philippe Lalanne (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Naphel

We present an in-depth analysis of Young's slit experiment when solely a single slit of the doublet is illuminated by a focused laser beam at visible and thermal infrared wavelengths. In line with the recent results obtained by Kuzmin et al.. [Opt. Lett. 32, 445 (2007)], even if only a single slit is illuminated by a focused beam, we show that the far-field pattern exhibits sinusoidal Young's fringes. Thanks to fully vectorial electromagnetic computations and to a simple model, we provide a comprehensive discussion of the nature of surface waves at work in the experiment.

Domains: Optics / Photonic; Optics [physics.optics]

Sylvain Ravets, Jean-Claude Rodier, Buntha Ea-Kim, Jean-Paul Hugonin, Lionel Jacubowiez, et al.. Surface plasmons in the Young slit doublet experiment. Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 2009, 26 (12), pp.B28-B33. ⟨hal-00566689⟩