Introduction

Surface plasmon polariton(SPP) is a surface electromagnetic wave coupling to the free electron oscillations in a metal. It can be excited when a light wave strikes a metal film under appropriate conditions. Such SPPs are involved in a wide range of phenomena, including nanoscale optical waveguiding, perfect lensing, extraordinary optical transmission, subwavelength lithography and ultrahigh-sensitivity biosensing.

The delay of electronic interconnects becomes a substantial limitation to the speed of digital circuits.Optical interconnects can carry digital data with a capacity more than 1000 times that of electronic interconnects, while fiber optic cables are also1000 times larger compared with electronic components.Surface plasmon–based photonics, or 'plasmonics', may offer a solution to this dilemma, because plasmonics has both the capacity of photonics and the miniaturization of electronics.

• Plasmonics: Merging photonics and electronics  at nanoscale dimensions (Ekmel Ozbay, Science 311 189 (2006)) Surface plasmon–based circuits, which merge electronics and photonics at the nanoscale, may offer a solution to this size-compatibility problem.
• Surface plasmon subwavelength optics(William L. Barnes, Alain Dereux & Thomas W. Ebbesen,  Nature 424 825 (2003)) One of the most attractive aspects of SPs is the way in which they help us to concentrate and channel light using subwavelength structures.

It is also proved experimentally that SPPs are also useful in the investigation of quantum information. We are doing experiments about the usages of SPPs in quantum devices.

Research

Our research focus on the usage of SPs in quantum information field. The emphasis is on studies of quantum transport based on SPs. We are developing new techniques of SPs structures, which maybe used to explore new quantum devices in the future.

• Investigate the influence of the hole array parameters on  quantum signal in the SPs assisted transmission process.
• Investigate the transmission of quantum signal in the metal nano-wire, metal curve, etc.
• Investigate the strong coupling between quantum dots and SPs structures, and explore the potential usage of SPPs in new quantum devices.