Miniature plasmonic wave plates

Linear birefringence, as implemented in wave plates, is a natural way to control the state of polarization of light. We report on a general method for designing miniature planar wave plates using surface plasmons. The resonant optical device considered here is a single circular aperture surrounded by an elliptical antenna grating. The difference between the short and long axis of each ellipsis introduces a phase shift on the surface plasmons which enables the realization of a quarter wave plate. Furthermore, the experimental results and the theoretical analysis show that the general procedure used does not influence the optical coherence of the polarization state and allows us to explore completely the surface of the unit Poincare sphere by changing only the shape of the elliptical grating.