Quantum surface plasmon resonance system based on electromagnetically induced transparency

A scheme for a new kind of surface plasmon resonance system (SPR) is proposed. The system is composed of three layers: a prism, a thin metal film, and a hybrid dielectric consisting of EIT atoms and a background substance. It is found that due to the inherently quantum feature, the EIT-based SPR system exhibits some interesting quantum properties which are absent in ordinary SPR systems. This system may be used for detecting very small variations of quantum properties of matters, such as small shifts of atomic levels caused by external fields, with subwavelength spatial resolution.