Propagation of photons in metallic chain through side-branch resonators

Abstract

We design a new scheme to transmit electromagnetic waves in a metallic chain, even when the total length is larger than the vacuum wavelength. The idea is to add dielectric side branches on the metallic backbone, which play the role of resonators. Owing to the coupling between adjacent resonant modes, photons can tunnel through the entire structure, which can be explained well by a description analogous to the tight-binding formalism in solid-state physics. Moreover, microwave experiments are performed to realize this idea.