Tracking surface plasmon pulses using ultrafast leakage imaging

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel ultrafast imaging technique using leakage radiation microscopy to accurately track surface plasmon wave packets on metal films, enabling precise measurement of their velocities for applications in near-field optics.

Contribution

The paper introduces a new time-domain leakage radiation microscopy method for ultrafast imaging and tracking of surface plasmon pulses, enhancing measurement precision.

Findings

Successful measurement of group and phase velocities of plasmon pulses

High-precision ultrafast imaging demonstrated

Versatile application in near-field optics

Abstract

We introduce a new method for performing ultrafast imaging and tracking of surface plasmon wave packets that propagate on metal films. We demonstrate the efficiency of leakage radiation microscopy implemented in the time domain for measuring both group and phase velocities of near-field pulses with a high level of precision. The versatility of our far-field imaging method is particularly appealing in the context of ultrafast near-field optics.