Geometrical phase and surface plasmon focusing with azimuthal polarization

Owing to a geometric phase effect, an isosceles triangular aperture etched into thin metal film leads to constructive or destructive interference of surface plasmons excited at the two equal sides under linearly polarized illumination. Through appropriate spatial arrangement of an array of triangles, a highly confined focal spot beyond the diffraction limit can be achieved at the geometric center under azimuthally polarized excitation with field enhancement comparable to a bull's eye plasmonic lens under radially polarized illumination. Through simply rotating the orientation of each triangle aperture by 90 degrees, the plasmonic structure defocuses the same azimuthal polarization illumination due to destructive interference caused by a geometric pi-phase difference between the two sides of the triangle and between the adjacent triangles. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America