Tailoring radiative and non-radiative losses of thin nanostructured plasmonic waveguides

Thin nanostructured metal films allow to control radiative and non-radiative losses of surface plasmon polariton modes without changing their group velocities. This effect is studied in plasmonic waveguides made of thin gold films drilled with very narrow slits and deposited on a GaAs substrate. The analysis is supported by high-resolution angle-resolved transmission measurements and rigorous electromagnetic calculations. We show that the excitation of air/gold and gold/GaAs surface waves leads to Fano-type resonances with specific light localization into the slits. As a result, gold/GaAs surface waves induce a modulation of radiative and non-radiative losses of air/gold surface waves. The minimum and maximum of the Fano-type resonance introduce two propagation regimes. In the radiative propagation regime, the losses due to the absorption are negligible, whereas an efficient inhibition of free-space coupling is demonstrated in low-loss propagation regime.