Plasmonic band structures and optical properties of subwavelength metal/dielectric/metal Bragg waveguides

In this paper, we applied the band structure theory to investigate the plasmonic band (PB) structures and optical properties of subwavelength metal/dielectric/metal Bragg waveguides in the near infrared range with either dielectric or geometric modulation. The Bloch wave vector, density of states, slowdown factor, propagation length and transmittance are calculated and analyzed. Both the modulations are in favor of manipulating surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves. For the dielectric modulation, the PB structure is mainly formed by SPP modes and possesses a "regular pattern" in which the bands and gaps have a relatively even distribution. For the geometric modulation, due to the strong transverse scattering, the contributions of higher modes have to be considered and the gap widths have a significant increase compared to the dielectric modulation. A larger slowdown factor may emerge at the band edge; especially for the geometric modulation, the group velocity can be reduced to 1/100 of light, and negative group velocity is observed as well. While inside the bands, the slowdown factor is smaller and the bands are flat. The contribution of each eigenmode to the PB structure is analyzed.