Single-photon excitation of surface plasmon polaritons

We provide the quantum-mechanical description of the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons on metal surfaces by single photons. An attenuated-reflection setup is described for the quantum excitation process in which we find remarkably efficient photon-to-surface plasmon wave-packet transfer. Usin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2008-11, Vol.101 (19), p.190504-190504, Article 190504
Main Authors: Tame, M S, Lee, C, Lee, J, Ballester, D, Paternostro, M, Zayats, A V, Kim, M S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS
EXCITATION
HAMILTONIANS
METALS
PHOTONS
POLARONS
QUANTUM MECHANICS
WAVE PACKETS
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Summary:We provide the quantum-mechanical description of the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons on metal surfaces by single photons. An attenuated-reflection setup is described for the quantum excitation process in which we find remarkably efficient photon-to-surface plasmon wave-packet transfer. Using a fully quantized treatment of the fields, we introduce the Hamiltonian for their interaction and study the quantum statistics during transfer with and without losses in the metal.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.190504