Singular diffraction-free surface plasmon beams generated by overlapping phase-shifted sources

Abstract

We propose and experimentally demonstrate the singular surface plasmon beam that presents a dark channel generated by a point dislocation and a long diffraction-free propagation distance up to 70λsp. The singular surface beam is the result of the interference of two surface plasmon polariton (SPP) plane waves, which are launched by two coupling gratings with lateral displacement. An aperture-type near-field scanning optical microscope is used to map the intensity distribution of the singular SPP waves. The propagating point dislocation embedded in the beam is shown by full-wave calculations and is later verified by near-field interference in the experiment. © 2013 Optical Society of America.