Efficient directional excitation of surface plasmon polaritons by partial dielectric filling slit structure

In this paper, we investigate the excitation of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) in the metallic slit partly filled with dielectric by using the finite-difference time-domain method. It is found that the slit structure displays high asymmetry in the field distribution and SPP excitation due to the difference in matching degree of SPP wavevector on the two sides of slit exit. At certain incident wavelengths, the power flow carried by SPP modes on one side of slit exit is over three orders of magnitude greater than that on the other side, an efficient directional excitation is achieved. The SPP generation efficiencies on both sides of slit exit can be periodically adjusted by the dielectric width, but their changes are not synchronous, implying that such slit structure could be acted as a directional splitter/coupler. Moreover, the asymmetry degree of SPP excitation can also be modulated by the refractive index of dielectric layer. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.