Leaky modes of curved long-range surface plasmon-polariton waveguide

A three-dimensional method for obtaining the bending losses and field distributions of bent surface plamon-polariton waveguides is presented. The method is based on a so called 'method of line', which discretises potential in the direction of the metal-widths, and leads to Airy-equations in the radial direction. From the results obtained. It is confirmed that thiner metal waveguide enable longer-ranging propagation of surface plasmon-polariton mode, but the weakened confinement requires larger bending radii on order to keep radiation loss. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.