金属异质波导阵列中的表面等离激元传播特性

提出了一种新的一维金属异质波导阵列的设计方案,即波导芯区周期调制的金属波导阵列.数值模拟的结果表明,金属波导芯区的周期调制引起波导中传播的表面等离激元有效折射率的周期调制,从而可在特定的波段打开一个表面等离激元带隙(如1550nm附近).通过引入合适的缺陷波导单元,可获得特定波长的高品质因子(Q=556)的表面电磁模共振.这一结果可用于设计亚波长的布拉格反射器、光发射器、滤波器等,有可能被用于未来的集成光路.     

High-confinement ultra-wideband bandpass filter using compact folded slotline spoof surface plasmon polaritons

A novel bandpass filter(BPF)based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons(SSPPs)using a compact folded slotline structure is proposed and experimentally demonstrated.The proposed novel SSPPs structure compared with a conventional plasmonic waveguide with slot line SSPPs unit structure at the same size,the considerable advantages in much lower asymptotic frequency with tight field confinement,which enable the proposed filter to be more miniaturization.A high-efficient mode conversion structure is designed to transition from TE-mode to SSPPs-mode by gradient slotline lengths.The low-frequency stop-band can be committed with microstrip to slotline evolution on both sides of the dielectric,while the high-frequency cutoff band is realized by the proposed SSPPs structure.The influence of dispersion relation,electric field distribution,surface current,and structural parameters on the transmission characteristics of the proposed BPF are analyzed by finite difference time domain(FDTD).To validate the design concept,the prototype of the miniaturized SSPPs BPF has been manufactured and measured.The experimental results show high performance of the fabricated sample,in which the working in a range of 0.9 GHz-5.2 GHz with the relative bandwidth is 142%,the insertion loss less than 0.5 dB,the reflection coefficient less than-10 dB,and the group delay is less than one ns.This works provides a mirror for realizing the miniaturization of waveguides,and the application and development of high-confinement SSPPs functional devices in the microwave and THz regimes.     

Absorption effects on the longitudinal bulk plasmon–polariton modes in 1D heterostructures containing anisotropic metamaterials

The transmission properties of electromagnetic waves through a one-dimensional layered system containing alternate layers of air and a uniaxial anisotropic left-handed material are investigated. The optical axis of such heterostructure is along the stacking direction and the components of the electric permittivity and magnetic permeability tensors that characterize the metamaterial are modeled by a Drude-type response and a split-ring resonator metamaterial response, respectively. Different plasmon frequencies are considered for directions parallel and perpendicular to the optical axis. For oblique incidence, longitudinal bulk-like plasmon polariton modes are found in the neighborhood of the plasmon frequency along the optical axis and anisotropy leads to the unfolding of nearly dispersionless plasmon–polariton bands either above or below the plasmon frequency. Moreover, it is shown that, even in the presence of loss/absorption, these plasmon polariton modes do survive and, therefore, should be experimentally detected.     

Enlargement of the band gap in the metal-insulator-metal heterowaveguide

We present a new metal-insulator-metal (MIM) heterowaveguide to enlarge the band gap, which is formed by alternately stacking two kinds of metals, modulating the MIM waveguide slit, and inserting different dielectric materials with the effective refractive index periodically modulated. Based on this structure, we adopt two different methods to enlarge the band gap: changing the thickness of the unit layer and combining two MIM structures. Both of them widen the band gap when surface plasmon polaritons propagate through the structure. This metal heterostructure is expected to have applications in surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) based optical devices, such as filters, waveguides, especially for broad band gap elements.     

Electric field amplification of plasmon-molecule hybrids revealed by first-principles time dependent density functional theory calculations

Using first-principles quantum mechanical calculations, we investigate the electric field amplification in hybrid nanostructures composed of few-atom Ni linear chains attached to an organic molecule. We found that the pristine Ni linear chains exhibit localized plasmons and produce nanoscale hotspot regions, acting as a plasmon-like nanoantenna. We demonstrate that localized plasmons provide massive electric field amplification in the vicinity of the molecule. Besides, we also investigated the active modulation of the optical absorption spectra due to the inclusion of a positive and/or negative electric field in the Hamiltonian. We believe that the results presented in this work are important for the emerging field of cavity induced photo-catalysis and will aid in the realization of new quantum nano-optic devices.     

A Promising Mechanism for Photonic Spin Hall Effect and Refractive Index Sensing: Surface Exciton Polaritons

Surface polaritons are surface electromagnetic waves propagating along the surface of a medium, which play an important role in enhancing the photonic spin Hall effect (SHE). Among them, the successful excitation of surface exciton polaritons (SEPs) often requires cryogenic temperature, which limits their practical applications. In this contribution, a promising mechanism is presented for enhancing the photonic SHE by taking advantage of room-temperature SEPs in a prism-glass-TDBC-air configuration. By depositing the TDBC layer on plasmon active metal, the hybrid polariton, namely, surface plasmon exciton polariton (SPEP) can be observed, which gives rise to the further enhancement of photonic SHE. Furthermore, a refractive index sensor based on SEP (or SPEP) enhanced photonic SHE is proposed with the superior sensing performance. The results pave the way for the realization of giant photonic SHE in this simple and promising method, and offer the opportunity for developing highly sensitive optical sensors.     

Design of tungsten complex gratings for thermophotovoltaic radiators

The concept of a kind of complex grating based on superposition of two simple binary gratings is described for potential application as thermophotovoltaic (TPV) radiators. The grating with one-dimensional microstructured surface is relatively easy to fabricate and the predicted directional-spectral emittance exhibits apparent enhancement over simple grating structures. Specifically, the emittance of the complex grating has a wider peak in the spectral region where the quantum efficiency of TPV cells is high. This enhancement can be explained by the excitation of surface plasmon polaritons coupled with the grating microstructures. At longer wavelengths, the emittance remains low to reduce the radiative heat transfer from the radiator to the TPV cells by low-energy photons that do not produce any photocurrent. Calculations using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis demonstrate that the emittance peak is insensitive to the direction, suggesting that the proposed structure may be well suitable for TPV applications.     

Linear dichroism in a GaAs microcavity

Linear dichroism experiments show that exciton–polariton ground states are split into a linearly polarized doublet. At normal incidence and zero detuning this splitting does not exceed 10 μeV for the upper polariton branch and 3 μeV for the lower one. For both branches the splitting decreases with positive and negative detuning.