On-chip spectropolarimetry by fingerprinting with random surface arrays of nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel on-chip spectropolarimetry method using random nanoparticle arrays on metal surfaces, which uniquely identify light's wavelength and polarization through scattered surface plasmon polariton patterns.

Contribution

The work demonstrates a new fingerprinting approach for spectropolarimetry based on random nanoparticle arrays that do not require beam tracking, simplifying on-chip implementation.

Findings

Distinct angular spectra correlate with wavelength and polarization.

Random nanoparticle arrays produce unique scattering fingerprints.

Method enables simple, on-chip spectropolarimetry without dispersion-based tracking.

Abstract

Optical metasurfaces revolutionized the approach to moulding the propagation of light by enabling simultaneous control of the light phase, momentum, amplitude and polarization. Thus, instantaneous spectropolarimetry became possible by conducting parallel intensity measurements of differently diffracted optical beams. Various implementations of this very important functionality have one feature in common - the determination of wavelength utilizes dispersion of the diffraction angle, requiring tracking the diffracted beams in space. Realization of on-chip spectropolarimetry calls thereby for conceptually different approaches. In this work, we demonstrate that random nanoparticle arrays on metal surfaces, enabling strong multiple scattering of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), produce upon illumination complicated SPP scattered patterns, whose angular spectra are uniquely determined by the polarization and wavelength of light, representing thereby spectropolarimetric fingerprints. Using um-sized circular arrays of randomly distributed {\mu}m-sized gold nanoparticles (density ~ 75 {\mu}m$^-$$^2$}) fabricated on gold films, we measure angular distributions of scattered SPP waves using the leakage radiation microscopy and find that the angular SPP spectra obtained for normally incident light beams different in wavelength and/or polarization are distinctly different. Our approach allows one to realize on-chip spectropolarimetry by fingerprinting using surface nanostructures fabricated with simple one-step electron-beam lithography.