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Surface plasmon-enhanced x-ray ultraviolet nonlinear interactions

H. Aknin1, O. Sefi1, D. Borodin1, E. Strizhevsky1, J.-P. Rueff2,3, J. M. Ablett2, and S. Shwartz1,*

  • *Contact author: shwarts7@biu.ac.il
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043226 – Published 1 December, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/l59t-lldy

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a method to manipulate x-ray emission rates and directions by coupling them to surface plasmon polaritons via x-ray-to-ultraviolet down-conversion in a metal. This mechanism generates highly correlated photon pairs, each consisting of one x-ray and one ultraviolet photon, enabling fine control of x-ray angular and spectral characteristics through the ultraviolet photons resonant with the surface plasmons. Our approach bridges a previously insurmountable gap between x-ray and plasmonic energy and momentum, enabling the use of engineered plasmonic structures to control x-ray emission. Furthermore, our work unlocks opportunities to explore plasmonic physics at the microscopic scale with atomic-scale resolution.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 043226– Published 1 December, 2025
  • Received 27 January 2025
  • Accepted 14 October 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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