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

We demonstrate an efficient nanoscale electrical detector for propagating surface plasmons, tightly confined to nanoscale silver wires. Our technique is based on the near-field coupling between guided plasmons and a nanowire field-effect transistor. We demonstrate that this near-field circuit can efficiently detect the plasmon emission from a single quantum dot that is directly coupled to the plasmonic waveguide.