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Letter

Nature Physics 5, 475–479 (1 July 2009) | doi:10.1038/nphys1284

Near-field electrical detection of optical plasmons and single-plasmon sources

Abram L. Falk , Frank H. L. Koppens , Chun L. Yu , Kibum Kang , Nathalie de Leon Snapp , Alexey V. Akimov , Moon-Ho Jo , Mikhail D. Lukin & Hongkun Park

Photonic circuits can be much faster than their electronic counterparts, but they are difficult to miniaturize below the optical wavelength scale. Nanoscale photonic circuits based on surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are a promising solution to this problem because they can localize light below the diffraction limit.