Selective modal excitation in a multimode nanoslit by interference of surface plasmon waves

Abstract

Interference of surface plasmons has been widely utilized in optical metrology for applications such as high-precision sensing. In this paper, we introduce a surface plasmon interferometer with the potential to be arranged in arrays for parallel multiplexing applications. The interferometer features two grating couplers that excite surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waves traveling along a gold–air interface before converging at a gold nanoslit where they interfere. A key innovation lies in the ability to tune the interference pattern by altering the geometrical properties of the gold nanoslit such that one, two or more resonance modes are supported in the nanoslit. Our experimental results validate the approach of our design and modelling process, demonstrating the potential to fine-tune geometrical parameters such as grating coupler pitch, depth, duty cycle, and nanoslit dimensions to alter the transmitted radiation pattern and the transmittance. We demonstrate the ability of a grating coupler to induce focusing of SPP waves to an arbitrary location on chip by illuminating with a converging Gaussian beam. Additionally, we observed far-field interference patterns linked to the multimodal operation of the nanoslit.