RT Journal Article T1 Engineering of self-bending surface plasmon polaritons through Hermite–Gaussian mode expansion A1 Hernández Rueda, Francisco Javier A1 Sanz Ortiz, Ángel Santiago A1 Martínez Herrero, María Rosario AB Surface plasmon polaritons have received much attention over the last decades in photonics or nanotechnology due to their inherent high sensitivity to metal surface variations (e.g., presence of adsorbates or changes in the roughness). It is thus expected that they will find promising major applications in widely cross-disciplinary areas, from material science to medicine. Here we introduce a novel theoretical framework suitable for designing new types of structured paraxial surface plasmon beams and controlling their propagation. More specifically, this method relies on a convenient Hermite-Gaussian mode expansion, which constitutes a complete basis set upon which new types of structured paraxial plasmon beams can be generated. The family of beams generated in this way presents a rather peculiar feature: they exhibit local intensity maxima at different propagation distances, which enables the control over where to place the beam energy. This, thus, opens up worthwhile pathways to manipulate light propagation along metal surfaces at the nanoscale. As a proof-of-concept, we provide numerical evidence of the feasibility of the method by analyzing the propagation of Airy-based surface plasmon polaritons along an air-silver interface. PB Elsevier SN 0030-3992 YR 2025 FD 2025-12 LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/133542 UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/133542 LA eng NO J. Hernandez-Rueda, Á.S. Sanz, R. Martínez-Herrero, Engineering of self-bending surface plasmon polaritons through Hermite–Gaussian mode expansion, Optics & Laser Technology 192 (2025) 113462. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2025.113462. NO 2025 Acuerdos transformativos CRUE-CSIC© 2025 The Author(s).Programa de Atracción de Talento 2020-T1/IND-19951 NO Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España) NO Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España) NO Comunidad de Madrid DS Docta Complutense RD 18 mar 2026