Demonstration of Bragg gratings based on long-ranging surface plasmon polariton waveguides

An experimental investigation of long-ranging surface plasmon-polariton waves guided along Bragg gratings fabricated from a thin finite width Au film embedded in a homogeneous background dielectric is reported. The operation of four grating families is demonstrated near the free space optical wavelength of 1550 nm. The influence of the length of the grating and the depth of effective index modulation on the performance of these elements is presented and discussed.