Abstract
We investigate numerically the effect of a finite metal film thickness on the propagation characteristics of the channel Plasmon polariton (CPP) and wedge plasmon polariton (WPP) modes, both in a symmetric and asymmetric environment. We observe that decreasing the metal thickness results in an improvement of the field localization near the groove tip and an increase of the losses for both types of mode. This behavior stems from the typical symmetric charge distribution of both modes across the metal film. When considering an asymmetric dielectric environment, the CPP mode is found to evolve into short range Plasmon modes propagating along the groove walls, in contrast to the WPP mode which remains essentially confined at the tip apex. These results can be useful to tailor the properties of such plasmon modes, using the metal thickness as the variable parameter.
Highlights
The constant need for faster signal processing systems has recently driven the information technology industry to consider the possibility of implementing optical interconnects in electronic circuits to achieve faster clock distribution and interdevice communication [1]
The channel and wedge plasmon polariton modes guided by a V-groove structure of finite metal thickness have been characterized and their behavior with respect to the metal thickness and dielectric environment has been investigated
The results indicate that a reduction of the metal thickness induces a considerable diminution of the modal volume for both the channel plasmon-polariton mode (CPP) and wedge plasmon-polariton mode (WPP) modes, as well as an increase of their propagation losses
Summary
The constant need for faster signal processing systems has recently driven the information technology industry to consider the possibility of implementing optical interconnects in electronic circuits to achieve faster clock distribution and interdevice communication [1] This approach has been hampered by the size mismatch between electronic and photonic components. Among the broad variety of plasmonic waveguides that have been proposed so far, metallic V-shaped grooves and wedges have recently attracted much attention [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15] Both theoretical [11,12,13,14, 16] and experimental studies [8, 9] have shown that the bound modes supported by such structures, i.e the channel plasmon-polariton mode (CPP) and wedge plasmon-polariton mode (WPP), can provide relatively long propagation lengths combined with a strong mode confinement. We first consider a symmetric environment for which the metallic film is embedded in air, and study the effect of the dielectric contrast between the substrate and the superstrate media
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