Huygens-Fresnel principle for surface plasmons

Tatiana Teperik (1) , Alexandre Archambault (1) , François Marquier (1) , Jean-Jacques Greffet (1)

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

We present an explicit form of the surface plasmon propagator. Its form has the structure of a vectorial Huygens-Fresnel principle. The propagator appears to be a powerful tool to deal with diffraction, interference and focusing of surface plasmons. In contrast with the scalar approximation used so far, the vectorial propagator accounts for near-field and polarization effects. We illustrate the potential of the propagator by studying diffraction of surface plasmons by a slit and focusing of surface plasmons by a Fresnel lens.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Tatiana Teperik, Alexandre Archambault, François Marquier, Jean-Jacques Greffet. Huygens-Fresnel principle for surface plasmons. Optics Express, 2009, 17 (20), pp.17483. ⟨10.1364/OE.17.017483⟩. ⟨hal-00574369⟩