Significantly increased surface plasmon polariton mode excitation using a multilayer insulation structure in a metal-insulator-metal plasmonic waveguide.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel multilayer insulation structure in a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) plasmonic waveguide to explore the possibility of increasing surface plasmon polariton (SPP) mode excitation. Numerical investigations show that the effective refractive index of the multilayer insulation structure affects symmetric SPP mode excitation. The significant enhancement of electric field intensity in horizontal and vertical profiles with a dipole in SiO2 compared with in Al2O3 is observed in the proposed MIM plasmonic waveguides due to a combination of the improved optical density and dipole radiation intensities under a low refractive index. The Au/SiO2/Al2O3/SiO2/Au geometry shows the best enhancement performances, which can serve as an excellent guideline for designing and optimizing a high-performance SPP source using a multilayer insulation structure.