Manipulating surface plasmon polaritons with infinitely anisotropic metamaterials

Guiding surface states through disorders recently has attracted attention of scientists from diverse backgrounds. In this work, we report a robust method to guide surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) through arbitrary distorted metal surfaces (a kind of disorder), including slopes, bumps, and sharp corners. Almost total transmissions over a broad frequency range can be achieved by use of infinitely anisotropic metamaterials (IAMs). The SPPs are coupled into and out of the bulk modes in the IAMs, where the bulk modes are routed by altering the principle axis of the IAMs. Due to unique non-diffraction property of the IAMs, all processes are of high efficiency, which are explained from both microscopic and macroscopic perspectives. Several functional SPP devices, including adapter, cloak, and sharp bending waveguide, are presented in the simulations. Two proof-of-concept SPP devices are experimentally demonstrated, where the SPPs are mimicked by the designer SPPs at microwave frequency.