`Deterministic' quantum plasmonics

Abstract

We demonstrate `deterministic' launching of propagative quantum surface-plasmon polaritons at freely chosen positions on gold plasmonic receptacles. This is achieved by using as plasmon launcher a near-field scanning optical source made of a diamond nanocrystal with two Nitrogen-Vacancy color-center occupancy. Our demonstration relies on leakage-radiation microscopy of a thin homogeneous gold film and on near-field optical microscopy of a nanostructured thick gold film. Our work paves the way to future fundamental studies and applications in quantum plasmonics that require an accurate positioning of single-plasmon sources and may open a new branch in plasmonics and nanophotonics, namely scanning quantum plasmonics.

Published in nanoletters: Nano Lett., 2010, 10 (11), pp 4566-4570 Publication Date (Web): October 21, 2010 Copyright \c{opyright} 2010 American Chemical Society

References in corpus (5)

• Near-field optical microscopy with a nanodiamond-based single photon tip
• 25-nm diamond crystals hosting single NV color centers sorted by photon-correlation near-field microscopy
• Remote optical addressing of single nano-objects
• CdSe-single-nanoparticle based active tips for near-field optical microscopy
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Cited by in corpus (2)

• On the imaging of electron transport in semiconductor quantum structures by scanning-gate microscopy: successes and limitations
• Leakage radiation microscopy of surface plasmons launched by a nanodiamond-based tip