Generation of surface plasmon-polaritons by edge effects Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • © 2018 International Press. By using numerical and analytical methods, we describe the generation of fine-scale lateral electromagnetic waves, called surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs), on atomically thick, metamaterial conducting sheets in two spatial dimensions (2D). Our computations capture the two-scale character of the total field and reveal how each edge of the sheet acts as a source of an SPP that may dominate the diffracted field. We use the finite element method to numerically implement a variational formulation for a weak discontinuity of the tangential magnetic field across a hypersurface. An adaptive, local mesh refinement strategy based on a posteriori error estimators is applied to resolve the pronounced two-scale character of wave propagation and radiation over the metamaterial sheet. We demonstrate by numerical examples how a singular geometry, e.g., sheets with sharp edges, and sharp spatial changes in the associated surface conductivity may significantly in uence surface plasmons in nanophotonics.

published proceedings

  • Communications in Mathematical Sciences

author list (cited authors)

  • Maier, M., Margetis, D., & Luskin, M.

citation count

  • 4

complete list of authors

  • Maier, Matthias||Margetis, Dionisios||Luskin, Mitchell

publication date

  • January 2018