Focusing Surface Plasmons with a Plasmonic Lens

Abstract

We report the focusing of surface plasmon polaritons by circular and elliptical structures milled into optically thick metallic films or plasmonic lenses. Both theoretical and experimental data for the electromagnetic nearfield is presented. The nearfield is mapped experimentally using nearfield scanning optical microscopy and plasmonic lithography. We find that the intensity at the focal points of the plasmonic lenses increases with size.