Tailoring spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices

• Published in: Opto-Electronic Advances Vol. 6; no. 4; p. 220133
• Main Authors: Yuan, Xinyao, Xu, Quan, Lang, Yuanhao, Jiang, Xiaohan, Xu, Yuehong, Chen, Xieyu, Han, Jie, Zhang, Xueqian, Han, Jiaguang, Zhang, Weili
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Center for Terahertz Waves and College of Precision Instrument and Optoelectronics Engineering,Tianjin University and the Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Information and Technology(Ministry of Education),Tianjin 300072,China%Center for Terahertz Waves and College of Precision Instrument and Optoelectronics Engineering,Tianjin University and the Key Laboratory of Optoelectronics Information and Technology(Ministry of Education),Tianjin 300072,China 01.01.2023; Guangxi Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Information Processing,School of Optoelectronic Engineering,Guilin University of Electronic Technology,Guilin 541004,China%School of Electronic and Computer Engineering,Oklahoma State University,Stillwater,OK 74078,USA; Institue of Optics and Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
• Subjects: optical orbital angular momentum; plasmonic vortex; spatiotemporal dynamics; surface plasmon; plasmonic vortex; optical orbital angular momentum; surface plasmon; spatiotemporal dynamics
• ISSN: 2096-4579
• DOI: 10.29026/oea.2023.220133

Plasmonic vortices confining orbital angular momentums to surface have aroused wide research interest in the last dec-ade. Recent advances of near-field microscopes have enabled the study on the spatiotemporal dynamics of plasmonic vortices, providing a better understanding of optical orbital angular momentums in the evanescent wave regime. However, these works only focused on the objective characterization of plasmonic vortex and have not achieved subject-ively tailoring of its spatiotemporal dynamics for specific applications. Herein, it is demonstrated that the plasmonic vor-tices with the same topological charge can be endowed with distinct spatiotemporal dynamics by simply changing the coupler design. Based on a near-field scanning terahertz microscopy, the surface plasmon fields are directly obtained with ultrahigh spatiotemporal resolution, experimentally exhibiting the generation and evolution divergences during the whole lifetime of plasmonic vortices. The proposed strategy is straightforward and universal, which can be readily ap-plied into visible or infrared frequencies, facilitating the development of plasmonic vortex related researches and applications.