Abstract
Based on the contra-directional coupling, a composite structure consisting of two coupled metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguides is proposed to act as an attractive plasmonic reflector. By introducing a defect into one of the MIM waveguides, we show that such a composite structure can be operated as a plasmonic nanocavity with a high quality factor. Both symmetric and anti-symmetric cavity modes are supported in the plasmonic cavity, and their resonance frequencies can be tuned by controlling the defect width. The present structures could have a significant impact for potential applications such as surface plasmon mirrors, filters and solid-state cavity quantum electrodynamics.
Highlights
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) have been suggested to act as novel digital data carriers in information processing, because plasmonics offers both the compactness of electronics and the speed of optics.[1,2] Over the past years, various plasmonic waveguide structures such as metallic stripes,[3] metal-insulator-metal (MIM) and insulator-metal-insulator (IMI) structures,[4,5,6,7] dielectricloaded SPP waveguides,[8] and V-shaped metal grooves,[9] have been prototyped as interconnects for information transport
To achieve a welldefined Bragg reflection or extinction in transmission, distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) should have more than several tens of periods, which makes the devices based on the DBRs very long and requires considerable effort to fabricate.[11,12,16]
The contra-directional coupling between a two-dimensional dielectric photonic crystal waveguide and an optical fiber has been demonstrated with high efficiency, in which the backward-wave propagation is feasible at higher bands of the photonic crystals.[30]
Summary
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) have been suggested to act as novel digital data carriers in information processing, because plasmonics offers both the compactness of electronics and the speed of optics.[1,2] Over the past years, various plasmonic waveguide structures such as metallic stripes,[3] metal-insulator-metal (MIM) and insulator-metal-insulator (IMI) structures,[4,5,6,7] dielectricloaded SPP waveguides,[8] and V-shaped metal grooves,[9] have been prototyped as interconnects for information transport. The propagation lengths of the s-mode and a-mode are plotted as a function of the operation frequency for the MgF2-MIM and GaAs-MIM waveguides with different insulator thicknesses in Fig. 1(d) and 1(e), respectively.
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