Helicity locking in light emitted from a plasmonic nanotaper

Abstract

Surface plasmon waves carry an intrinsic transverse spin, which is locked to its propagation direction. Apparently, when a singular plasmonic mode is guided on a conic surface this spin-locking may lead to a strong circular polarization of the far-field emission. Specifically, an adiabatically tapered gold nanocone guides an a priori excited plasmonic vortex upwards where the mode accelerates and finally beams out from the tip apex. The helicity of this beam is shown to be single-handed and stems solely from the transverse spin-locking of the helical plasmonic wave-front. We present a simple geometric model that fully predicts the emerging light spin in our system. Finally we experimentally demonstrate the helicity-locking phenomenon by using accurately fabricated nanostructures and confirm the results with the model and numerical data.