Holography with surface-plasmon-coupled waveguide modes

We report on an attempt to use the enhancement effect of surface-plasmon re sonance to improve the image quality of a waveguide hologram. With a struct ure consisting of a waveguide medium sandwiched between a metal film and a hologram, we obtained holographic images reconstructed by surface-plasmon-c oupled waveguide modes. Comparison of the holographic images reconstructed by TM and TE modes indicates that the surface-plasmon effect is responsible for better image quality in diffraction efficiency and image contrast. (C) 2001 Optical Society of America.