Surface Plasmon Polariton Transmission Research Articles

Beam manipulating by metallic nano-slits with variant widths

A novel method is proposed to manipulate beam by modulating light phase through a metallic film with arrayed nano-slits, which have constant depth but variant widths. The slits transport electro-magnetic energy in the form of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in nanometric waveguides and provide desired phase retardations of beam manipulating with variant phase propagation constant. Numerical simulation of an illustrative lens design example is performed through finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and shows agreement with theory analysis result. In addition, extraordinary optical transmission of SPPs through sub-wavelength metallic slits is observed in the simulation and helps to improve elements' energy using factor.

Linear and Nonlinear Transmission of Surface Plasmon Polaritons in an Optical Nanowire

ABSTRACTPolymer-metal composites offer the possibility of strongly enhanced nonlinear optical properties, which can be used for ultrasmall photonic devices. In this paper, we investigate numerically, by means of the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, the propagation characteristics of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes excited in an optical nanowire consisting of a chain of either metallic cylinders or metallic spheres embedded in dielectric shells made of polymers (or other material) with optical Kerr nonlinearity. Our FDTD calculations incorporate both the nonlinear optical response of the dielectrics as well as the frequency dispersion of the metals, which is considered to obey a Drude-like model. It is demonstrated that, in the linear limit, the nanowire supports two SPP modes, a transverse and a longitudinal one, separated by Δλ = 20 nm. Furthermore, the dependence of the transmission of these SPP modes, on both the pulse peak power and Kerr coefficient of the dielectric shell, is investigated. Nonlinear optical phenomena, such as power-dependent mode frequency, switching, or optical limiting, are observed.