We investigated the interaction of a periodically patterned columnar thin film (PP-CTF) of silver with light incident on it from a vacuous half space, as a function of the angle ψ between the plane of incidence and the morphologically significant plane of the PP-CTF. The chosen structure had previously been shown to be capable of showing asymmetric coupling of surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves over a broad bandwidth in the visible regime with incident light when the plane of incidence coincides with the morphologically significant plane of the PP-CTF ( ψ = 0°). We determined experimentally that coupling may be completely symmetric in some spectral regime, when the plane of incidence is orthogonal to the morphologically significant plane of the PP- CTF ( ψ = 90°). Whereas asymmetric coupling occurs with quasilinear dispersion when ψ = 0°, completely symmetric coupling occurs with quasiparabolic dispersion.

Date Published: 5 May 2015
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9502, Metamaterials X, 95020R (5 May 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2179008

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9502:
Metamaterials X
Vladimír Kuzmiak; Peter Markos; Tomasz Szoplik, Editor(s)