2016/04/05 by Tom T. A. Lummen, R. J. Lamb, Raymond J. Lamb +11 · 3 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Gold and Silver Nanoparticles Synthesis and Applications #Near-Field Optical Microscopy #Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/ncomms13156
16 pages, 5 figures, 3 supplementary figures
arxiv created 2016/04/05 · openalex publication_date 2016/10/11 · arxiv updated 2016/11/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Filming and controlling plasmons at buried interfaces with nanometer (nm) and femtosecond (fs) resolution has yet to be achieved and is critical for next generation plasmonic/electronic devices. In this work, we use light to excite and shape a plasmonic interference pattern at a buried metal-dielectric interface in a nanostructured thin film. Plasmons are launched from a photoexcited array of nanocavities and their propagation is filmed via photon-induced near-field electron microscopy (PINEM). The resulting movie directly captures the plasmon dynamics, allowing quantification of their group velocity at approximately 0.3c, consistent with our theoretical predictions. Furthermore, we show that the light polarization and nanocavity design can be tailored to shape transient plasmonic gratings at the nanoscale. These results, demonstrating dynamical imaging with PINEM, pave the way for the fs/nm visualization and control of plasmonic fields in advanced heterostructures based on novel 2D materials such as graphene, MoS2, and ultrathin metal films.