Controlling guided modes in plasmonic metal/dielectric multilayer waveguides
- Department of Physics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio 45221 (United States)
- Department of Physics, Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio 45207 (United States)
We investigate the mode properties of planar dielectric aluminum-quinoline (Alq{sub 3}) multilayer waveguides comprising one single or three equally spaced embedded nanometer-thin (∼10 nm thick) Alq{sub 3}-Mg{sub 0.9}:Ag{sub 0.1} composite metal-island layers. The plasmonic waveguides were fabricated by organic molecular beam deposition. Transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) modes were selectively excited using the m-line method. The symmetric plasmonic TM{sub 0} mode was launched in all waveguides and—in addition—two higher order plasmonic TM{sub 1} and TM{sub 2} modes were generated in waveguides comprising three metal layers. Other TM modes have hybrid dielectric-plasmonic characters, showing an increased effective refractive index when one electric field antinode is close to a metallic layer. TM modes which have all their antinode(s) in the dielectric layers propagate essentially like dielectric modes. TE modes with antinode(s) at the position of the metal layer(s) are strongly damped while the losses are low for TE modes comprising a node at the position of the composite metal film(s). The possibility to control the effective refractive index and the losses for individual hybrid plasmonic-dielectric TM and dielectric TE modes opens new design opportunities for mode selective waveguides and TM-TE mode couplers.
- OSTI ID:
- 22412857
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Applied Physics, Journal Name: Journal of Applied Physics Journal Issue: 21 Vol. 117; ISSN JAPIAU; ISSN 0021-8979
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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