Abstract

Plasmons have attracted extensive interest due to their potential applications in various fields. The potential arises from ability of optical field confinement and hence enhancement of the optical field in the vicinity of the plasmonic material. Enhanced fields are utilized for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), for example. To design SERS substrate for sensing applications, deep understanding of plasmon is essential. To reveal spectroscopic, spatial, and dynamical properties of plasmons, observation of plasmons with high spatio- and temporal resolution is crucial. We developed near-field spectroscopic methods, which enable to visualize plasmons spatio-temporally [1]. By using the microscope, we studied spatial and dynamical features of plasmons excited in various nanostructures. In this study, visualization of plasmons with various imaging techniques will be described.

© 2014 Japan Society of Applied Physics, Optical Society of America