Photonic Hook Plasmons: A New Curved Surface Wave

Today the surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves propagating along the curve trajectory are the only plasmonic beams of the Airy family. Herein, a new class of curved surface plasmon wave, the photonic hook plasmon (PHP), is introduced. The PHP is created using the in-plane focusing of the SPP wave through an asymmetric dielectric particle. This is fundamentally simpler than the generation of the SPP Airy-family beams. The PHP propagates along a wavelength-scaled curved trajectory with radius less than the SPP wavelength, which represents the smallest radius of curvature ever recorded for an SPP beam, and can exist despite the strong energy dissipation at metal surface.