Efficient unidirectional launching of surface plasmons by a cascade asymmetric-groove structure

Xue-Yang Song; Zhengxing Zhang; Huimin Liao; Zhi Li; Chengwei Sun; Jianjun Chen; Qihuang Gong

doi:10.1039/c6nr00342g

Efficient unidirectional launching of surface plasmons by a cascade asymmetric-groove structure

Nanoscale. 2016 Mar 28;8(12):6777-82. doi: 10.1039/c6nr00342g.

Authors

Xue-Yang Song¹, Zhengxing Zhang¹, Huimin Liao¹, Zhi Li¹, Chengwei Sun², Jianjun Chen², Qihuang Gong²

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. HMLiao@pku.edu.cn z_li@pku.edu.cn.
² School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China. HMLiao@pku.edu.cn z_li@pku.edu.cn and State Key Laboratory for Mesoscopic Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.

PMID: 26955752
DOI: 10.1039/c6nr00342g

Abstract

Increasing the unidirectional launching efficiency of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) is crucial in plasmonics. Here, we demonstrate that this efficiency may be improved by cascading subwavelength unidirectional SPP launching units. A unidirectional SPP launching efficiency of at least 46% and an extinction ratio of 40 are experimentally demonstrated using a cascade asymmetric-groove structure. Meanwhile, the device is ultracompact, and has a lateral dimension of only 1.1 μm. The proposed structure also presents a broadband response and is easy to fabricate. This high-performance wavelength-scale unidirectional SPP launcher represents an important development in practical SPP sources.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't