A Multithread Nested Neural Network Architecture to Model Surface Plasmon Polaritons Propagation

Micromachines (Basel). 2016 Jun 30;7(7):110. doi: 10.3390/mi7070110.

Abstract

Surface Plasmon Polaritons are collective oscillations of electrons occurring at the interface between a metal and a dielectric. The propagation phenomena in plasmonic nanostructures is not fully understood and the interdependence between propagation and metal thickness requires further investigation. We propose an ad-hoc neural network topology assisting the study of the said propagation when several parameters, such as wavelengths, propagation length and metal thickness are considered. This approach is novel and can be considered a first attempt at fully automating such a numerical computation. For the proposed neural network topology, an advanced training procedure has been devised in order to shun the possibility of accumulating errors. The provided results can be useful, e.g., to improve the efficiency of photocells, for photon harvesting, and for improving the accuracy of models for solid state devices.

Keywords: high performance computing; nanoplasmonics; nanotechnologies; neural networks; photonics.