Surface plasmon propagation imaging by a photon scanning tunneling microscope

¹ Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne, Université de Bourgogne, 9 Avenue Alain Savary, 21078 Dijon, France
² Centre for Nanostructured Media, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen's University, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK

^* e-mail: ffornel@u-bourgogne.fr

Abstract

This paper describes the first direct observation of surface plasmon propagation on a metallic thin film deposited on a glass slide, thus facilitating the first direct measurement of the propagation length. This was achieved using photon scanning tunneling microscopy (PSTM). Subsequently, near-field observations of the surface plasmon buried at the metal-glass interface, generated from a discontinuity in the metallic thin film, were reported.