Plasmonics DOI 10.1007/s11468-013-9606-y
Plasmonic Photonic Bloch Oscillations in Composite Metal–Insulator–Metal Waveguide Structure Bo Han Cheng & Yi-Chieh Lai & Yung-Chiang Lan
Received: 3 May 2013 / Accepted: 18 July 2013 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013
Abstract This study proposes the time-evolved plasmonic photonic Bloch oscillations (PBOs) in a composite metal– insulator–metal (CMIM) waveguide structure. This device contains two kinds of MIM waveguide with different thickness of the insulator gaps. The time-resolved plasmonic PBO motion in this CMIM waveguide can be observed by introducing a linearly graded dielectric material. The ray trajectory results from the Hamiltonian optics are consistent with the finite-difference time-domain simulation results. Keywords Surface plasmon . Bloch oscillation . Metal–insulator–metal waveguide . Hamiltonian optics
Introduction Photonic Bloch oscillations (PBOs) in a one-dimensional quasi-periodic optical superlattice, an analog of electron Bloch oscillations (EBOs) in a crystal, are periodic oscillations of an optical pulse that propagates in the superlattice [1]. EBOs are difficult to be observed in conventional crystal due to the coherence time of electronic wave packet is much shorter than that completing one period of the Bloch oscillation. Photons have similar nature of wave with electrons but they are uncharged. Comparing with charged electrons, photons possess far longer coherent time. Hence, PBOs have been observed in various one-dimensional optical superlattices, such as a Bragg grating, a photonic crystal-coupled B. H. Cheng Research Center for Applied Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei 115, Taiwan e-mail:
[email protected] Y.
