Surface plasmon polaritons (plasmons) have the potential to interface electronic and optical devices. They could prove extremely useful for integrated quantum information processing. Here we demonstrate on-chip electrical detection of single plasmons propagating along gold waveguides. The plasmons are excited using the single-photon emission of an optically emitting quantum dot. After propagating for several micrometers, the plasmons are coupled to a superconducting detector in the near-field. Correlation measurements prove that single plasmons are being detected.
@article{arxiv.1001.2723,
title = {On-Chip Single Plasmon Detection},
author = {Reinier W. Heeres and Sander N. Dorenbos and Benny Koene and Glenn S. Solomon and Leo P. Kouwenhoven and Valery Zwiller},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1001.2723},
year = {2010}
}