The Propagation Properties Of Surface Plasmon Polaritons In Metal-Dielectric Multilayers

With the rapid development of science and technology, the optical components on smaller scales are required. In the last decade, a big progress has been made in investigating various nontraditional components, mainly based on the nanotechnologies. Meanwhile, much attention has been paid to the plasmonic components, and people have been working on the properties of the surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). In this paper, we study the SPP propagation properties in the plasmonic waveguides composed of metal-dielectric multilayers. Our work is a exploration in the field of optical components’ miniaturization. The plasmonic waveguide which we design is a kind of optical component on nanoscale, and conforms to the trend of components’ miniaturization.The first chapter is a review, introducing the research background and the outline of the thesis.The second chapter gives the basic theories involved in the research. We will present the basic physical models and mathematical tools, including the Maxwell’s equations, the boundary value relations, the nonlinear effects, the Drude model, and the Bessel functions, which are all useful in practical theoretical calculations.The third chapter concerns the fundamental theoretical models and the derivations of corresponding plasmonic modes, and we do some innovative reform on the foundation of basic models. The detailed derivation of the plasmonic modes is presented. The relations between the propagation constant and the structural parameters are discussed based on the numerical calculations. In usual cylindrical plasmonic waveguides the dielectric is uniform material. In this paper, we add new ideas, and change the dielectric constant of dielectric layers so that dielectric layers are composed of different kind of material. This kind of dielectric constant’s change results in the variation of propagation properties.The fourth chapter is main part of the thesis, and our innovative design is also presented in this part, and we study the nonlinear cylindrical plasmonic waveguides composed of metal-dielectric multilayers. We design a five-layer cylindrical waveguide, and its central layer, third layer and outer layer are made of dielectric material, and the second layer and fourth layer are made of metal material. The waveguide has four metal-dielectric interfaces altogether, and SPP exists on each interface. We mainly study the distribution of light intensity on these interfaces, and how to control the distribution of light intensity. It is very difficult to analyze the waveguide. Consequently we regard it as a system composed of two cylindrical dielectric-metal-dielectric plasmonic waveguide and analyze it. We calculate single waveguide first, and analyze the interaction between them. We obtain the propagation properties both theoretically and numerically. With the help of Lorentz reciprocity theorem, we derive the mode equation. The nonlinearity of dielectric layer is a factor we consider, and is also physical property we utilize. The introduction of nonlinearity will result in propagation properties’variation. We consider the Kerr effect of dielectric layer. When the nonlinearity is considered, the mode equation becomes a nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Numerical calculations show that there exists nonlinear bistability of the propagating modes as the power changes. We can change the distribution of light intensity by the means of changing the value and the way of variation of light intensity. That is to say, it can be achieved that the nonlinear cylindrical plasmonic waveguide we design can be controlled by light. And this kind of bistability encourages us to develop all-optical components on nanoscale in plasmonics.The summary is in the last chapter.