Optimal design of dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguide with genetic algorithm

Abstract

We propose a design and optimization method for a dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguide using a genetic algorithm. This structure consists of a polymer ridge on top of two layers of substrate and gold film. The thickness, width and refractive index of the ridge are designed to optimize the figures of merit including mode confinement and propagation length. The modal analysis combined with the effective index method shows that the designed waveguide exhibits a fundamental propagation mode with high mode confinement while ensuring that the propagation loss remains relatively low.