Abstract
We investigate electromagnetic wave propagation in multilayered metal-dielectric hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs). We demonstrate that high-k propagating waves in HMMs are volume plasmon polaritons. The volume plasmon polariton band is formed by coupling of short-range surface plasmon polariton excitations in the individual metal layers.
Highlights
Hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs) are subwavelength structures such as rod arrays [1,2,3,4] or multilayers [5,6] made to imitate “indefinite media,” a special case of extreme anisotropy where diagonal elements of the permittivity tensor have different signs [7]
We investigate electromagnetic wave propagation in multilayered metal-dielectric hyperbolic metamaterials (HMMs)
We demonstrate that high-k propagating waves in HMMs are volume plasmon polaritons
Summary
The effective index approach does not explain the transition from a conventional material on a smaller (microscopic) scale to an HMM on a larger scale, and fails to provide any insight into the physical nature of high-k modes other than to assert that they must be bulk propagating waves. Such insight would be crucial to explore the extent to which these modes can be used as information carriers. We provide a direct proof that a band of bulk propagating waves (VPPs) with large wave vectors in periodic multilayer HMMs originates from coupling of SPPs in the individual metal layers by virtue of the Bloch theorem.
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