Near-to-far-field spectral evolution in a plasmonic crystal: Experimental verification of the equipartition of diffraction orders

Abstract

We report on drastic changes in the near-field spectrum as it evolves into the far field in periodically corrugated metallic nanoslit arrays. The far-field spectral minimum is located exactly at the near-field spectral maximum, where a quasimonochromatic standing wave pattern is observed in the near field. These results are in excellent agreement with the equipartition of diffraction orders recently proposed.