Back-propagating surface polaritons of a one-dimensional photonic crystal containing single negative metamaterials

The existence of the surface polaritons at the interface separating a semi-infinite uniform left-handed metamaterial and a one-dimensional photonic crystal composed of alternating layers of two kinds of single-negative materials is theoretically investigated. The dispersion characteristics of the surface polaritons are analyzed and demonstrated that in the presence of metamaterial, the surface polaritons are sensitive to light polarization, so that there exist only backward TM-polarized (or TE-polarized) kind of the surface polaritons depending on the ratio of the thicknesses of the two periodic stacking layers. The existence regions of the surface polariton modes are determined for both TM-polarized and TE-polarized surface polariton modes. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.