Scanning plasmonic microscopy by image reconstruction from the Fourier space.

We demonstrate a simple scheme for high-resolution imaging of nanoplasmonic structures that basically removes most of the resolution limiting allowed light usually transmitted to the far field. This is achieved by implementing a Fourier lens in a near-field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) operating in the leakage-radiation microscopy (LRM) mode. The method consists of reconstructing optical images solely from the plasmonic 'forbidden' light collected in the Fourier space.

“Deterministic” quantum plasmonics.

We demonstrate “deterministic” launching of propagative quantum surface-plasmon polaritons at freely chosen positions on gold plasmonic receptacles. This is achieved by using as a plasmon launcher a near-field scanning optical source made of a diamond nanocrystal with two nitrogen-vacancy color-center occupancy. Our demonstration relies on leakage-radiation microscopy of a thin homogeneous gold film and on near-field optical microscopy of a nanostructured thick gold film.