Electric field vector characterization of terahertz surface plasmons.

We demonstrate the ability to characterize independently the vector components of the electric field associated with terahertz surface plasmons. This is accomplished via electro-optic sampling, using an electro-optic crystal placed in close proximity to a corrugated metal foil. The individual electric field vector components are measured using two separate ZnTe crystals. Since ZnTe exhibits isotropic dielectric properties, all of the detection configurations obey identical phase-matching constraints. Furthermore, since ZnTe is characterized by a single independent electro-optic tensor component, the field measurements may be directly compared against one another.