Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 1889 - 1892 (1996)Local Excitation, Scattering, and Interference of Surface Plasmons |
B. Hecht1, H. Bielefeldt1, L. Novotny2, Y. Inouye1 *, and D. W. Pohl1 †
1IBM Research Division, Zurich Research Laboratory, CH-8803 Rüschlikon, Switzerland
2Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Received 14 December 1995; revised 29 March 1996
The optical probe of a scanning near-field optical microscope is shown to act as a point source of surface plasmon (SP) polaritons on gold and silver films. Plasmon excitation manifests itself by emission of light in the direction of the SP resonance angle, originating from an area with the shape of a dipole radiation pattern whose extension is given by the SP decay length. Interaction with selected, individual surface inhomogeneities gives rise to characteristic modifications of the emitted radiation, which provide detailed information about SP scattering, reflection, and interference phenomena.
©1996 The American Physical Society
URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v77/p1889
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.1889
PACS: 78.66.Bz, 42.25.Hz, 42.30.Va, 71.36.+c
* On leave from Osaka University, Suita, Osaka 565, Japan.
† Electronic address: DP@ZURICH.IBM.COM
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