A nanodiamond (ND) hosting nitrogen-vacancy (NV) color centers is attached on the apex of an optical tip for near-field microscopy. Its fluorescence is used to launch surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) in a thin polycrystalline gold film. It is shown that the quantum nature of the initial source of light is preserved after conversion to SPPs. This opens the way to a deterministic quantum plasmonics, where single SPPs can be injected at well-defined positions in a plasmonic device produced by top-down approaches.
@article{arxiv.1312.1888,
title = {Quantum Optics With Single Nanodiamonds Flying Over Gold Films: Towards A Robust Quantum Plasmonics},
author = {O. Mollet and A. Drezet and S. Huant},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1312.1888},
year = {2013}
}