Observation of space-time surface plasmon polaritons.

ABSTRACT: Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) at metal-dielectric interfaces provide strong out-of-plane confinement enabling nano-scale sensing and imaging, yet diffraction causes spatial delocalization. Conventional strategies to combat diffraction through spatial structuring are inapplicable to dimensionally restricted SPPs, except for nonlocalized cosine plasmons and Airy plasmons that follow curved trajectories. Here we demonstrate space-time SPPs (ST-SPPs), ultrashort (16-fs) diffraction-free SPPs that propagate rectilinearly via precise sculpting of their spatiotemporal spectra. By synthesizing a spatiotemporally structured field in free space and coupling the field to an axially invariant ST-SPP at a metal-dielectric surface, we control the ST-SPP group velocity and propagation characteristics

SUBMITTER: Ichiji N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12669788 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature