title: Near-field optical phase antennas for long-range plasmon coupling.
abstract: Plasmon-mediated long-range coupling of optical excitations is shown to be attainable using near-field phase antennas involving nanoparticles situated at focal spots. The antennas rely on metal-surface features that are geometrically arranged to produce constructive interference of plasmons emanating from a source spot over a designated image position. Large image-field intensities and focal spots as narrow as one-third of the wavelength are obtained for source-image separations of tens of micrometers. The ability to strongly couple distant focal spots through phase accumulation produced by engineered plasmon scatterers opens up a vast range of possibilities in contactless plasmon sensing, optical interconnects, and microscopy.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Optica, CSIC, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Alberto G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Curto
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Javier García de Abajo