Huygens-Fresnel principle for surface plasmons

We present an explicit form of the surface plasmon propagator.Its form has the structure of a vectorial Huygens-Fresnel principle.The propagator appears to be a powerful tool to deal with diffraction, interference and focusing of surface plasmons.In contrast with the scalar approximation used so far, the vectorial propagator accounts for near-field and polarization effects.We illustrate the potential of the propagator by studying diffraction of surface plasmons by a slit and focusing of surface plasmons by a Fresnel lens.