Waveguiding in surface plasmon polariton band gap structures

Abstract

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) excited in the wavelength range 80-820 nm are analyzed using near-field optical microscopy. The propagation and scattering of the polaritons are studied at nanostructured gold-film surfaces with areas of 200-nm-wide scatterers arranged in a 400-nm-period triangular lattice containing line defects. It is shown that with the SPP reflection by such an area and SPP guiding along line defects at 782 nm, the SPP band gap effect can be demonstrated.