Wave-Particle Duality of Single Surface Plasmon Polaritons

Marie-Christine Dheur Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique Graduate School, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, Palaiseau, France Eloise Devaux Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaire, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Strasbourg, France Thomas Ebbesen Institut de Science et d’Ingénierie Supramoléculaire, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Strasbourg, France Philippe Lalanne Laboratoire Photonique, Numérique et Nanosciences , Institut d’Optique d’Aquitaine, Université de Bordeaux, CNRS, Talence, France Jean-Jacques Greffet Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique Graduate School, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, Palaiseau, France Gaétan Messin Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique Graduate School, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, Palaiseau, France François Marquier Laboratoire Charles Fabry, Institut d'Optique Graduate School, Université Paris-Sud, CNRS, Palaiseau, France

Surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) result from collective oscillations of free electrons coupled to an electromagnetic field at a plane interface between the metal and a dielectric medium. As photons, SPPs can be considered either as waves or as particles [1,2] and they can experience striking quantum interferences such as Hong-Ou-Mandel effect [3], entanglement correlation measurements [4] and one of the most remarkable one: wave-particle duality.

Although demonstrated for guided plasmons supported by a nanorod [5], to our knowledge, wave-particle duality has not been tested yet on SPPs propagating on a simple plane metallic interface. We report an experiment showing this dual behavior. The SPPs are created and detected by coupling single photons to nanostructured couplers etched on an optically thick gold film. As a first step, the particle-like behavior is tested with Hanbury-Brown-Twiss experiment by sending a single SPP onto a splitter separating SPPs in two orthogonal in-plane directions. We observe a strong anti-correlation between the two output ports, demonstrating the particle behaviour. We then use this single SPP source in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We observe fringes with a visibility of 60% +/- 10%, demonstrating the wave behavior of the single SPP. In these experiments, the plasmonic interferometer layout is similar to the usual free-space experiments with single photons which makes it easy to compare the results with the fundamental wave-particle duality of photons experiments [6].

Experimental demonstration of this quantum property is essential to further validate the quantum description of SPPs and for future applications in quantum communication mediated by SPP.

[1] JM Elson and R.H. Ritchie, Phys. Rev. B 4, 4129 (1971)

[2] A. Archambault et al., Phys. Rev. B 82, 035411 (2010)

[3] J.S. Fakonas et al., Nat. Phot. 8, 317 (2014)

[4] E. Altewischer et al., Nature 418, 304 (2002)

[5] R. Kolesov et al. , Nat. Phys. 5, 470 (2009)

[6] P. Grangier et al., EuroPhys. Lett. 1, 173 (1986)

marie-christine.dheur@institutoptique.fr