Surface plasmon optical vortices and their influence on atoms

Lembessis, V. E., Al-Awfi, S., Babiker, M. and Andrews, D. L. (2011) Surface plasmon optical vortices and their influence on atoms. Journal of Optics, 13 (6). ISSN 2040-8978

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Abstract

An optical mode is generated in vacuum by the total internal reflection of a beam, at the planar surface of a dielectric on which a metallic film is deposited. When the beam impinging on the surface is a Laguerre–Gaussian (LG) mode, the resulting surface mode with field components in the vacuum region possesses vortex properties, in addition to surface plasmon features. Such surface plasmon optical vortex (SPOV) modes have well-defined orbital angular momentum, residing in an azimuthal phase relative to the propagation direction of the internally reflected light. Significantly, as SPOVs are characterized by a small mode volume, they can strongly couple to atomic or molecular systems in the vicinity of the surface. In particular, SPOVs generated by single or counter-propagating, symmetrically incident laser fields give rise to optical forces that can restrict the lateral in-plane motion of such atoms, thus acting as a trap. Typical atom trajectories, evaluated for sodium atoms initially localized in the vicinity of the metallized surface, exhibit a variety of rotational, vibrational and translational effects, as well as trapping.

Item Type:	Article
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Chemistry (former - to 2024)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Centre for Photonics and Quantum Science Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Chemistry of Light and Energy Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Physical and Analytical Chemistry (former - to 2017)
Depositing User:	Users 2731 not found.
Date Deposited:	23 Aug 2011 11:33
Last Modified:	24 Sep 2024 09:00
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/34583
DOI:	10.1088/2040-8978/13/6/064002

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