Guiding, bending, and splitting of coupled defect surface modes in a surface-wave photonic crystal

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a novel waveguiding mechanism for coupled surface-wave defect modes in a photonic crystal, utilizing weak coupling between localized defect cavities, offering a classical wave analogue to electronic tight-binding models.

Contribution

It introduces a new waveguiding approach for coupled defect modes in surface-wave photonic crystals, distinct from traditional spoof surface plasmon waveguides.

Findings

Successful experimental demonstration of the waveguiding mechanism.

Weak coupling enables guiding, bending, and splitting of surface modes.

Analogous to tight-binding electronic wavefunctions.

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate a type of waveguiding mechanism for coupled surface-wave defect modes in a surface-wave photonic crystal. Unlike conventional spoof surface plasmon waveguides, waveguiding of coupled surface-wave defect modes is achieved through weak coupling between tightly localized defect cavities in an otherwise gapped surface-wave photonic crystal, as a classical wave analogue of tight-binding electronic wavefunctions in solid state lattices.