Cross conversion between surface plasmon polaritons and quasicylindrical waves

X. Y. Yang (1) , Haitao Liu (1) , Philippe Lalanne (1)

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

The optical properties of textured metallic surfaces are governed by the scattering of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) and of quasicylindrical waves (CWs), which are both excited by the nano-objects located on the surface. We study here a fundamental scattering process of these fields, namely, the cross conversion of a CW into a SPP. We first show that this inelastic process is inevitable in multi-nano-object ensembles and then propose a procedure enabling a rigorous calculation of the cross conversion scattering coefficients. Additionally, by mapping this intricate process to a much simpler one, we derive general and simple expressions for the cross conversion efficiency. All predictions are carefully supported by fully vectorial computational results.

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]; Optics / Photonic; Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]

X. Y. Yang, Haitao Liu, Philippe Lalanne. Cross conversion between surface plasmon polaritons and quasicylindrical waves. Physical Review Letters, 2009, 102 (15), pp.153903. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.153903⟩. ⟨hal-00570586⟩