Coherence and aberration effects in surface plasmon polariton imaging

Martin Berthel (1) , Quanbo Jiang (1) , Camille Chartrand (1) , Joël Bellessa (2) , Serge Huant (1) , Cyriaque Genet (3) , Aurelien Drezet (1)

1 NEEL - NOF - Nano-Optique et Forces
2 ILM - Institut Lumière Matière [Villeurbanne]
3 ISIS - Institut de Science et d'ingénierie supramoléculaires

We study theoretically and experimentally coherent imaging of surface plasmon polaritons using either leakage radiation microscopy through a thin metal film or interference microscopy through a thick metal film. Using a rigorous modal formalism based on scalar Whittaker potentials, we develop a systematic analytical and vectorial method adapted to the analysis of coherent imaging involving surface plasmon polaritons. The study includes geometrical aberrations due index mismatch which played an important role in the interpretation of recent experiments using leakage radiation microscopy. We compare our theory with experiments using classical or quantum near-field scanning optical microscopy probes and show that the approach leads to a full interpretation of the recorded optical images.

Domaines: Autre [cond-mat.other]

Martin Berthel, Quanbo Jiang, Camille Chartrand, Joël Bellessa, Serge Huant, et al.. Coherence and aberration effects in surface plasmon polariton imaging. Physical Review E : Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, 2015, 92 (3), pp.033202. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevE.92.033202⟩. ⟨hal-01627783⟩