Design and simulation of dielectric-loaded surface plasmon waveguides with applications in the visible range

This work presents a numerical analysis using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method of the optical properties (modal characteristics, dispersion, propagation length, and optical confinement) exhibited by a particular class of plasmonic waveguides named dielectric loaded surface plasmon (DLSP) devices. The DLSP systems investigated here consist in ridge like waveguides realized from PMMA with typical cross section areas of 100x100 nm configured on the top of a silver substrate. The FDTD simulations show that in the visible range an optimal compromise between a high degree of optical confinement and an adequate propagation length of around 10 mu m can be achieved. This indicates that in this spectral range the proposed DLSP waveguides could possesses applications in various sensing and optical signal processing devices.