Invited Paper PL-MoA1
Nanoplasmonics under Coherent Control

Monday, October 15, 2007, 2:00 pm, Room 619

Surface plasmon (SP) modes of metal nanostructures can and do localize at the nanoscale in the regions much smaller than the excitation radiation wavelength. Their minimum localization size is limited by the smallest features of the nanostructures and limits of the macroscopic electrodynamics. In practical terms, SPs can localize within just a few nanometers. Local optical fields in a plasmonic nanostructure form nano-sized hot spots where the SPs are localized. In many cases, such a hot spot is a superposition of several or many SP modes. Exciting such a nanoplasmonic system with an optical field that is a coherent superposition of different frequencies, one can impart different phases on the excited SP modes. Due to the interference of these SPs, the intensity of the corresponding hot spot can be changed: the constructive interference leads to the enhanced local fields, and the destructive one to their suppression at any given hot spot. This is a principle of the coherent control of nanoplasmonic energy concentration at the nanoscale proposed theoretically in our paper.¹ The coherent control can be implemented by both continuous-wave excitation and ultrashort pulses that can be considered as a coherent superposition of wide band of harmonics. Since this publication, this coherent control at the nanoscale has been both significantly developed theoretically.² and observed experimentally.³ In this talk, we review the existing knowledge on the ultrafast coherent control of nanoscale optical energy localization in surface plasmonics. We also discuss the latest theoretical ideas including the time-reversal coherent control,⁴ carrier-envelope phase effect,⁵ and the spatio-temporal coherent control.⁶

¹M. I. Stockman, S. V. Faleev, and D. J. Bergman, Coherent Control of Femtosecond Energy Localization in Nanosystems, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 67402 (2002)
²See, e.g., M. I. Stockman, D. J. Bergman, and T. Kobayashi, Coherent Control of Nanoscale Localization of Ultrafast Optical Excitation in Nanosystems, Phys. Rev. B 69, 054202-10 (2004); T. Brixner, F. J. G. d. Abajo, J. Schneider, and W. Pfeiffer, Nanoscopic Ultrafast Space-Time-Resolved Spectroscopy, Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 093901-1-4 (2005); M. Sukharev and T. Seideman, Phase and Polarization Control as a Route to Plasmonic Nanodevices, Nano Lett. 6, 715-719 (2006)
³A. Kubo, K. Onda, H. Petek, Z. Sun, Y. S. Jung, and H. K. Kim, Femtosecond Imaging of Surface Plasmon Dynamics in a Nanostructured Silver Film, Nano Lett. 5, 1123-1127 (2005); M. Aeschlimann, M. Bauer, D. Bayer, T. Brixner, F. J. G. d. Abajo, W. Pfeiffer, M. Rohmer, C. Spindler, and F. Steeb, Adaptive Subwavelength Control of Nano-Optical Fields, Nature 446, 301-304 (2007)
⁴X. Li and M. I. Stockman, Time-Reversal Coherent Control in Nanoplasmonics, arXiv:0705.0553 (2007); Phys. Rev. Lett. (Submitted)
⁵M. I. Stockman and P. Hewageegana, Absolute Phase Effect in Ultrafast Optical Responses of Metal Nanostructures, Appl. Phys. A (2007) (In Print)
⁶M. Durach, A. Rusina, K. Nelson, and M. I. Stockman, Toward Full Spatio-Temporal Control on the Nanoscale, arXiv:0705.0725 (2007)