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APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS 87, 013107 2005

Plasmon Bragg reflectors and nanocavities on flat metallic surfaces

Bing Wang and Guo Ping Wanga
Department of Physics, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, Peoples Republic of China

Received 13 January 2005; accepted 17 May 2005; published online 29 June 2005
Metal heterostructures constructed surface plasmon polaritons SPPs Bragg reflectors and
nanocavities on flat metallic surfaces are proposed and demonstrated numerically. A metal
heterowaveguide structured by alternately stacking two kinds of metal gap waveguides MGWs
shows periodically effective refraction index modulation to SPPs and produces SPP propagation on
flat metallic surfaces a band gap in certain frequencies, known as plasmonic band gap, in which SPP
propagation is forbidden. Changing the width of one MGW in the heterowaveguide, a SPP
nanocavity with high quality factor can be created. Our results imply a broad possibility of
constructed SPP-based Bragg reflectors, emitter, and filters, etc., on flat metallic surfaces for planar
nanometeric photonic networks. 2005 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.1954880
Currently much effort is being devoted to develop
nanoscale photonic circuits based on surface plasmon polaritons SPPs.1 So far, SPP-based nanophotonic elements such
as waveguides, lenses, reflectors and beam splitters have
been theoretically predicted and/or experimentally demonstrated by using metal particles, strips, slits and holes.28 On
the other hand, constructed metallic surfaces by periodically
modulating the thickness of metal films, known as relief
modulation, have been attracting the attention of researcher
here in both fundamental physics and application purposes,
mainly due to the appearance of plasmonic band gap PBG
as SPPs propagate on such relief surfaces.9 In terms of the
PBG property, a series of two-dimensional planar SPP photonic devices have been demonstrated.7,8 Very recently, SPP
Bragg reflectors have also been fabricated by engraving a
few slots into a metal strip.10 All of the above SPP elements
are based on geometric fluctuation of metallic surfaces,
which will unavoidably lead to strong scattering and energy
loss due to the transmission of SPP to irradiation optical
modes. Therefore, it is not easy to get high energy efficiencies with such SPP Bragg reflectors and waveguides.1,7,8,10 In
this letter, by modulating the effective refraction index of
metal gap waveguide MGW on SPP propagation through
constructed heterowaveguide,11 we propose and numerically
demonstrate a kind of SPP Bragg reflectors and nanocavities
on flat metallic surfaces.
Considering a MGW composed of two parallel metal
plates Fig. 1a, when gap width w of the MGW is reduced
below the diffraction limit, optical modes of a TM polarized
incident light magnetic field parallel to the y direction in
the waveguide transforms to SPP modes on metallic
surfaces.12 The dispersion equation of SPPs in the waveguide
can be read as13

0 p 1 expkw
=
,
mk 1 + expkw

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; electronic mail:

kpwang@hotmail.com

0003-6951/2005/871/013107/3/$22.50

spp
k0

0 ;

p = k0

spp
k0

m .

Here Rek1 and Rep1 determine the decay lengths

skin depths of SPPs in the dielectric of the guide region and
the metal, respectively; spp is the propagation constant of
SPPs, and k0 =2 / , is the wavelength of incident light is
the wave number of light in air, while 0 and m are the
dielectric functions of dielectric in guide region and metal
plate, respectively. The term m is from the Drude formula:
m = 1 2p / + i. Here p and are the plasma frequency and loss component of metal, respectively, and
=ck0, c is the light velocity in air is the frequency of
incident light. Effective refraction index of the waveguide
for SPPs can be defined as
neff =

spp
.
k0

Figure 1b shows the dependence of Reneff of two MGWs

constructed with different metals with p1 = 15 eV, 1
= 0.01 eV and p2 = 9 eV, 2 = 0.001 eV, respectively,14 on
the wavelength of incident light and gap width w of the

with
a

k = k0

FIG. 1. a Scheme of MGW. 0=Rek1 and m=Rep1 present the

skin depths of SPP in dielectric of the gap and metal, respectively. b
Dependence of Reneff of two MGWs consisting of metals p = 9 and
15 eV, respectively, on the wavelength of incident light and gap width of
MGWs.

87, 013107-1

2005 American Institute of Physics


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B. Wang and G. P. Wang

http://www.paper.edu.cn
Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 013107 2005

FIG. 3. a SPP nanocavity composed of two MGWs. b Transmission

spectra of nanocavity for L = 555 nm.

FIG. 2. a Scheme of two MGWs structured SPP Bragg reflector. b PBG

as a function of gap width of MGWs. Inset depicts the transmission spectrum of Bragg reflector with w = 25 nm. T denotes the light transmission; c
and d illustrate the gray distributions of Hy2 in the structure as the incident light is inside = 1.55 m and outside = 2 m the PBG,
respectively.

MGW as dielectric in the gap is assumed to be air 0 = 1.

From the figure we see that, with the same w, effective refraction index of the MGW consisting of lower p metal is
always greater than that of the higher one, while both suffer
from slight dispersion. Bearing this in mind, we can, analogous to the conventional dielectric Bragg reflectors in which
two dielectrics with different refraction indices are generally
used, combine such MGWs to design SPP Bragg reflectors
by alternately arranging two MGWs along the SPP propagation direction z axis. Figures 2a and 2b shown are our
designed SPP Bragg reflection structure and the corresponding PBG dependence on gap width w of MGWs as two metals are p1 = 15 eV and p2 = 9 eV, respectively. From Fig.
2b, we see that the wider the guide gap, the narrower the
PBG will be. This is due to the decrease of contrast of two
MGWs in effective refraction indices with enlarged w Fig.
1b. Blueshift of PBG with w can be attributed to the dwindling of optical length of the lattice constant d1 Reneff1
+ d2 Reneff2 lead by the decrease of neff of SPPs in guide
regions Fig. 1b. In the case of gap width of MGWs w
= 25 nm, we can get the effective refraction indices of two
MGWs with metals p1 = 15 eV and p2 = 9 eV, respectively,
as Reneff1 = 1.435 and Reneff2 = 1.669. Based on Bragg
condition d1 Reneff1 + d2 Reneff2 = b / 2, where b is the
Bragg wavelength, we can obtain a Bragg reflector operating
around telecom wavelength 1.55 m by choosing the widths
of two MGWs as d1 = 270 nm p1 = 15 eV and d2
= 230 nm p2 = 9 eV, respectively. The calculated transmission spectrum of SPPs through the structure by standard
transmission matrix method shows that there exists a PBG in
the near-infrared region around = 1.55 m, in which SPPs
are reflected completely inset of Fig. 2b. The Hy2 distributions of SPPs in the waveguide excited by different inci-

dent lights are calculated by finite-difference time-domain

method. One can see that SPPs excited by = 1.55 m are
prevented completely by the waveguide Fig. 2c, while
that excited by a light out of the PBG = 2 m can thoroughly pass through the waveguide Fig. 2d.
As the crucial photonic devices, photonic microcavities
exhibit attractive properties in high efficiency light emission,
low threshold lasers and channel drop filter for the wavelength division multiplexer, etc.1517 In what follows, based
upon the PBG property of metal heterowaveguides that appeared, we design a nanocavity on flat metallic surface for
SPP emission at = 1.55 m. The nanocavities consist of
ABNCBAN structure as shown in Fig. 3a, where A and B
are the MGWs with p1 = 15 eV, 1 = 0.01 eV and d1
= 270 nm, and p2 = 9 eV, 2 = 0.001 eV and d2 = 230 nm, respectively, N denotes the period numbers of AB guides, and
C, the nanocavity or defect in the guide, is formed with
p1 = 15 eV MGW with length L and localized at the center
of the waveguide. Figure 3b presents the transmission spectrum as L = 555 nm. In the calculation, the period number N
of AB MGWs and gap width w of the guides are set to be 12
and 25 nm, respectively. It shows that a transmission maximum occurs in the center of PBG = 1.55 m. That is, a
light wave of = 1.55 m can excite a resonant SPP defect
mode in the cavity and transmit the heterowaveguide. Figures 4a and 4b illustrate the Hy2 distributions of resonant
incident light = 1.55 m in the waveguide. We see that the
field intensity oscillates in a standing wave pattern across the
waveguide z axis. Peak field intensity in the nanocavity and
its exponential decay away from the cavity illustrate the
strong localization of SPPs. By varying the length L of microcavity, different resonant SPP frequencies with changed
peak field intensities appear. Figure 4c shows the maximum
field intensity of SPP defect mode as a function of incident
wavelength. In the calculation, the period number N of AB
MGWs is set to be 15. From the figure we see that a field
enhancement of about 16 times as high as the incident light
is obtained when the defect mode is around not exactly,
because of the slight dispersion of neff of each MGW, see
Fig. 1b the center frequency = 1.55 m of the PBG.
The dependence of SPP cavity quality factor Q = c / c
and are the center wavelength and the full width at half
maximum of the SPP defect mode, which describes the ratio
of the energy stored in the structure at resonance to the en-


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Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 013107 2005

B. Wang and G. P. Wang

medium around the waveguide, SPP propagation loss can be

greatly compensated.20
In conclusion, based on the dependence of effective refraction index of MGWs on different metals, we have proposed and numerically demonstrated a kind of metal heterostructures for SPP Bragg reflectors and nanocavities.
Heterowaveguides by alternatively stacking two MGWs produce SPP propagation on flat metallic surfaces a PBG in
certain frequencies, while the length variation of one MGW
in the heterowaveguide creates a SPP defect mode in the
PBG. Our results would have big implications in constructing distributed feedback Bragg SPP emitters, filters, and
other nanophotonic devices and elements on flat metallic surfaces for planar nanometeric photonic networks.
Financial support from the Program for New Century
Excellent Talents in University and the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant No. 60278018 are acknowledged.
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1

FIG. 4. a Gray distribution of Hy2 in SPP nanocavity for the wavelength

of incident light is 1.55 m. b Hy2 profile along z axis on the line x = 0.
c Dependencies of maximum field intensity and quality factor Q on the
wavelength of incident light.

ergy lost per cycle of oscillation, on frequency of SPP defect

mode, is shown in Fig. 4c. It can be found that the maximum Q of about 212 with = 7.3 nm also appears around
the center frequency of PBG. As the mode shifts toward the
band edges, Q decays rapidly. If we set the period number N
of AB MGWs to be 10, 12, 18, the maximum Q of about 60,
107, 330 with = 25.8, 14.5, 4.7 nm can be achieved, respectively. By increasing the numbers N of AB MGWs at
both sides of the nanocavity, and/or enhancing the contrast of
effective refractive indices of two MGWs, a higher Q value
can be achieved. With this SPP nanocavity formed on flat
metallic surfaces, low threshold SPP-emitting devices18 and
SPP-based quantum cascade lasers19 in nanometric integrated planar photonic circuits become possible.
Though transmission frequency is independent of the
loss of metals, transmittance of SPP decreases with increased . Fortunately, most noble metals hold very small
in the optical and infrared regions and SPPs can propagate
longer length on the surface of such metals. For example, the
propagation length of SPPs excited on Au film by a nearinfrared light can achieve several tens of micrometers.10 Furthermore, given the unavoidable natural loss of metals,
propagation loss in MGWs can also be compressed by widening the gap width since the imaginary part of neff of the
guide is accordingly decreased.11 Additionally, with an active