Fourier microscopy of single plasmonic scatterers

We report an experimental technique for quantifying the angular distribution of light scattered by single plasmonic and metamaterial nanoscatterers, based on Fourier microscopy in a dark-field confocal setup. This setup is a necessary tool for quantifying the scattering properties of single plasmonic and metamaterial building blocks, as well as small coupled clusters of such building blocks, which are expected to be the main ingredients of nano-antennas, light-harvesting structures and transformation optics. We present a set of measurements on Au nanowires of different lengths and show how the radiation patterns of single Au nanowires evolve with wire length and as a function of driving polarization and wave vector.