High-resolution surface plasmon resonance holographic microscopy based on symmetrical excitation

Surface plasmon resonance holographic microscopy (SPRHM) is able to simultaneously obtain the amplitude- and phase-contrast surface plasmon resonance (SPR) images, showing great potentials in imaging near-field targets with high sensitivity. However, suffered by the decaying length of surface plasmon wave which can be as long as tens of microns, the spatial resolution of SPRHM is lower than that of traditional holographic microscopy. In this work, we propose to enhance the spatial resolution in SPRHM by exciting surface plasmon resonance in two symmetrical directions and detecting the complex amplitudes of the reflected light symmetrically. Through the Fourier analysis of the recorded composite hologram, the reconstruction schemes for high-resolution amplitude- and phase-contrast SPR images are established, respectively. The feasibility and advantages of the proposed method is verified by numerical simulations and experimental demonstrations of small-size particles and micro-structures.