Scattering-free plasmonic optics with anisotropic metamaterials

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method using anisotropic metamaterials to eliminate parasitic scattering in plasmonic surface waves, enabling advanced two-dimensional plasmonic optical devices.

Contribution

It presents a new formalism to suppress scattering in plasmonics using anisotropic metamaterials, advancing the design of efficient, scattering-free plasmonic components.

Findings

Demonstrated scattering-free plasmonic refractor

Designed plasmonic crystal with reduced parasitic scattering

Discussed potential applications in sensing and cloaking

Abstract

We develop an approach to utilize anisotropic metamaterials to solve one of the fundamental problems of modern plasmonics -- parasitic scattering of surface waves into free-space modes, opening the road to truly two-dimensional plasmonic optics. We illustrate the developed formalism on examples of plasmonic refractor and plasmonic crystal, and discuss limitations of the developed technique and its possible applications for sensing and imaging structures, high-performance mode couplers, optical cloaking structures, and dynamically reconfigurable electro-plasmonic circuits.