Optical Tunneling through Arbitrarily-Shaped Plasmonic Channels and Sharp Bends

TL;DR

This paper introduces a design for ultranarrow, arbitrarily-shaped plasmonic channels that enable efficient optical tunneling and energy squeezing, inspired by epsilon-near-zero metamaterials, with minimal dependence on channel geometry.

Contribution

It presents a novel mechanism for optical tunneling through complex plasmonic channels using ENZ-inspired design principles, allowing enhanced transmission regardless of shape or bends.

Findings

Resonant tunneling is weakly dependent on channel length.

Enhanced transmission achieved through sub-wavelength design.

Bends and abruptions do not significantly impair tunneling.

Abstract

We propose a mechanism for optical energy squeezing and anomalous light tunneling through arbitrarily-shaped plasmonic ultranarrow channels and bends connecting two larger plasmonic metal-insulator-metal waveguides. It is shown how a proper design of sub-wavelength optical channels at cut-off, patterned by plasmonic implants and connecting larger plasmonic waveguides, may allow enhanced resonant transmission, inspired by the anomalous properties of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) metamaterials. The resonant tunneling is shown to be only weakly dependent on the channel length and its specific geometry, such as possible presence of abruptions and bends.