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OPTICS LETTERS / Vol. 31, No. 9 / May 1, 2006

Nanoscale metal waveguide arrays as plasmon lenses

Xiebin Fan and Guo Ping Wang
Key Laboratory of Acoustic and Photonic Materials and Devices, Ministry of Education and Department of Physics, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China Received November 14, 2005; revised January 20, 2006; accepted January 28, 2006; posted February 10, 2006 (Doc. ID 66008) Propagation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) through a set of nanoscale metal waveguide arrays (MWGAs) is numerically simulated by using the nite-difference time-domain method. The results reveal that MWGAs show an interesting lens effect on SPPs: SPPs can be strongly focused or defocused by the MWGAs, which we attribute to anomalous coupling of SPPs in MWGAs. Our results imply interesting potential for MWGAs in, for example, nonlinear optics, optical imaging, and nanosensing. 2006 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 230.7370, 240.6680.

The spatial resolution of conventional optical devices is diffraction limited.1 One way to overcome this limit is through surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), which are evanescent waves trapped on the interface between a conductor and a dielectric.2 Many unique structures for nanophotonic devices that employ SPPs have been proposed and studied both theoretically and experimentally.35 In addition, optical waveguide arrays are currently attracting considerable interest for use in observing linear and nonlinear optical phenomena such as diffraction management,6 optical Bloch oscillation,79 and soliton propagation.10,11 However, little attention has been paid to study of the electromagnetic eld properties of nanoscale counterparts of such discrete optical systems. We have even investigated SPP propagation in nanoscale metal waveguide arrays (MWGAs) and found that SPP-coupled linear MWGAs show potential applications in nanoscale interferometers, array imaging, and directional couplers.12 In this Letter, we numerically demonstrate by nite-difference time-domain simulation that linear-coupled nanoscale MWGAs exhibit an interesting subwavelength focusing and defocusing effect. The MWGA structures considered in this Letter consist of 30 two-dimensional metal waveguides with 2 m length [Fig. 1(a)]. To avoid reection from the output end of the MWGAs, we employ the perfectly matched layer absorbing boundary condition.13 The metal material used to construct the MWGAs is Ag, the relative permittivity of which is = 15.7+ 0.94j at incident wavelength 632.8 nm .14 The dielectric between the Ag lms is air. The thicknesses of the Ag lm and air are selected to be 20 nm (thinner than the skin depth of Ag, which is 25 nm in the visible range15) and 30 nm, respectively. In our simulations, to avoid the inuence of elds reected from the guide array boundary, we assume that only 11 guides in the central part of the MWGA are illuminated by the incident light source. The magnetic eld intensity Hy 2 is used to represent the eld intensity distributions in all cases. For the nite-difference timedomain cell size, we have tested different cell sizes of 2 and 5 nm to nd the best parameter. We nd that
0146-9592/06/091322-3/$15.00

the cell size with dx = dy = 5 nm is small enough to yield simulation accuracy with an acceptable computation time. To excite SPP modes in MWGAs, we select as the incident light a TM-polarized Gaussian wave (magnetic eld parallel to the y direction) whose full width at half-maximum (FWHM) is 265 nm. Figure 1(b) shows the SPP eld distribution as a light source is placed right on the entrance facet of the MWGA. We can see that, in this case, the SPPs retain the Gaussian shape of the incident light upon propagation, as has been experimentally observed in the dielectric waveguide counterparts of MWGAs.16 However, as the light source is moved away from the entrance facet of the MWGAs, the SPPs will be focused on the guide arrays. For example, as the light source is placed 250 nm from the input facet of the MWGA, the SPPs excited by incident light are focused on the MWGA [Fig. 1(c)]. The FWHM of the optical eld intensity, Hy 2, at the focusing spot is 160 nm [Fig.

Fig. 1. (a) Scheme of the MWGAs structure. The Hy 2 distribution of SPPs in the MWGA is shown for a light source placed (b) on the input facet and (c) 250 nm from the input facet of the MWGA. (d) Normalized intensity proles of the light source (dashed curve) and the SPP eld at the focusing spot (solid curve) in (c). 2006 Optical Society of America

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1(d)]. The sawtoothed Hy 2 distribution can be attributed to the fact that focusing takes place in discontinuous MWGAs. This focusing effect of discrete optical systems has been observed previously only in conventional nonlinear optical waveguide arrays.1719 To understand the physics behind the interesting focusing property of MWGAs described above, we rst consider optical eld coupling of normal propagation light in a discrete waveguide array20: i dan z dz + C an1 z + an+1 z = 0, 1

where an is the model amplitude of the electronic or magnetic eld in the nth guide and C represents the coupling coefcient. Equation (1) is obtained under the approximations that only coupling between adjacent guides is involved while others are neglected. From Eq. (1) we can deduce the transverse velocity of the optical eld across the waveguide arrays as16 = 2C sin
0

Fig. 2. (a) Propagation direction and (b) phase wavefront of Hy 2 of the incident light beam and SPPs in a MWGA. (c), (d) Relation between the propagation direction and the phase wavefront of the SPPs in a MWGA as in Figs. 1(b) and 1(c), respectively.

in which 0 is the transverse wavenumber multiplied by the periodicity of the waveguide array. Equation (2) shows that the transverse propagation of the optical eld inside a discrete waveguide system is decided by coupling coefcient C. It is known that in a linear coupled dielectric waveguide array C is generally positive.21 Our work shows, however, that C in MWGAs is a negative number.22 This means that, as the incident light is tilted so that it is incident on the MWGA, the propagation of light beams inside and outside the guide array has the opposite transverse velocity. The upward-propagating beam outside the guide array will switch to downward propagation as the beam enters the guide array, and vice versa. So the light beam looks as if it is negatively refracted by the guide array. As a result, the group velocity and the phase velocity of the light beam in the guide array are in different directions. This situation is unlike light propagation through the interface between the conventional homogeneous dielectrics, in which the group velocity and the phase velocity of light beam are in the same direction. The negative refraction has been theoretically studied23 and experimentally conrmed in both lefthanded metamaterials24 and photonic crystals.2527 The physics behind the negative refraction of MWGAs, like that of photonic crystals, is attributed to the periodic modulation of permittivity.27,28 The negative coupling coefcient C of electromagnetic waves in MWGAs makes their dispersion relation in the rst Brillouin zone hyperbolic. Hence, negativerefraction propagation of electromagnetic waves in MWGAs appears.29 As a surface electromagnetic eld, a SPP shows similar evanescent coupling properties among the adjacent waveguides of the MWGAs. Thus we can understand the focusing effect of the MWGA on SPPs as the light source is placed away from the input facet of the MWGA. Figure 2(a) shows that, as an incident beam is tilted into the MWGA, the SPPs excited inside the structure exhibit a transverse velocity oppo-

site to that of the incident light beam. The upwarddirected light beams outside the guide array will excite downward SPPs, and vice versa. As a result, the propagation direction and the wavefront of the SPPs in the MWGA are tilted to the same side as the guide arrays [Fig. 2(b)]. Figure 2(c) illustrates the wavefront and the propagation direction of incident light and SPPs in the case of Fig. 1(c). Before entering the MWGA, the light source looks like a dispersed point source. The part of the light beam from the upper half of source has upward transverse velocity, while the part from the lower half shows downward transverse velocity. As the SPPs excited by the light beam propagate in the MWGA, however, the transverse velocity of the SPPs excited by both the upper and lower incident light, have changed their propagation directions as a result of diffraction [shown by Fig. 2(c)]. Consequently, just as light focusing is achieved through modulation of the phase distribution by the lens, the SPPs are focused inside the MWGA. However, when the light source is placed just right in front of the input facet of the MWGA as shown in Fig. 1(b), the SPPs possess a at phase wavefront in the MWGA. Thus only discrete diffraction instead of focusing will take place in propagation [Fig. 2(d)]. Keeping in mind that SPP propagation in MWGAs can be controlled by modulating its phase wavefront, structures with concave and convex surfaces should show contrary imaging properties, as would an optical lens with different curved surfaces. Figures 3(a) and 3(b) show MWGA structures with a concave input facet and with the SPP eld distribution in the structure, respectively. One can see from Fig. 3(b) that a concave MWGA looks like a positive lens and produces a focusing effect on SPPs when a light source is placed just in front of the entrance of the MWGA, as shown in Fig. 1(b). A focusing spot with FWHM= 245 nm [Fig. 3(c)] and a eld intensity similar to that of the light source are obtained. Figures 3(d) and 3(e) show a MWGA structure with a convex

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Fig. 3. (a), (d) Schemes of the MWGA structures with a curved input facet and (b), (e) their SPP eld intensity distributions. (a), (b) Concave and (d), (e) convex input facets. (c) Normalized Hy 2 distribution proles of the light source (dashed curve) and the SPP eld at the focusing spot (solid curve) of (b).

input surface and the distribution of the corresponding SPPs in the structure, respectively. One can see that a convex MWGA exhibits a negative lens property and the SPP eld shows the defocusing property. Our simulation result indicates (not shown here) that thinner Ag lms will enhance coupling between adjacent waveguides and provide a sharper focusing effect and a smaller eld spot. In addition, with an optimized input facet shape, MWGAs will also show better lens properties. This means that the lens property of a MWGA can be improved effectively by changing the thickness of the metal lm and the shape of the input facet of waveguide arrays. In conclusion, a lens effect of a MWGA as a result of anomalous coupling among the adjacent metal waveguides and beam propagation direction of the SPPs is numerically demonstrated and analyzed. By modulating the excited light wavefront of the SPPs through a curved input facet of the MWGA or the position of the light source, SPPs show interesting focusing and defocusing properties. These lens properties may be interesting for in areas such as nonlinear optics, biosensing, and nanoimaging. We thank C. T. Chan of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology for stimulating discussions. Financial support from the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University (grant NCET-04-0678) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 10574101) is acknowledged. G. P. Wangs e-mail address is kp wang @hotmail.com.

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