Maxwell's equations approach to soliton excitations of surface plasmonic resonances

TL;DR

This paper develops a Maxwell's equations-based theoretical framework to describe soliton-plasmon bound states at metal/dielectric/Kerr interfaces, providing analytical solutions and insights into their stability and dynamics for photonic applications.

Contribution

It introduces a new analytical approach using a variational method to derive explicit eigenmodes of nonlinear Maxwell's equations for soliton-plasmon states.

Findings

Analytical expressions for soliton-plasmon eigenmodes.

Predictions of stability and dynamic behavior of soliton-plasmon states.

Validation through finite element numerical modeling.

Abstract

We demonstrate that soliton-plasmon bound states appear naturally as propagating eigenmodes of nonlinear Maxwell's equations for a metal/dielectric/Kerr interface. By means of a variational method, we give an explicit and simplified expression for the full-vector nonlinear operator of the system. Soliplasmon states (propagating surface soliton-plasmon modes) can be then analytically calculated as eigenmodes of this non-selfadjoint operator. The theoretical treatment of the system predicts the key features of the stationary solutions and gives physical insight to understand the inherent stability and dynamics observed by means of finite element numerical modeling of the time independent nonlinear Maxwell equations. Our results contribute with a new theory for the development of power-tunable photonic nanocircuits based on nonlinear plasmonic waveguides.