Analysis of waveguide structure for surface plasmon polariton interference

This paper describes a multi-reflected mode based on a narrow waveguide to enlarge the interferential area of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). A reasonable thickness of metal film is coated under the waveguide, the incident angle and the waveguide thickness are optimized in order to effectively increase interferential area. This is a key point for research into the Goos-Hanchen shift to optimize the waveguide thickness. Finally, the SPP interferential field is simulated with the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) technique to prove the optimized results, and indicates that not only is the interferential area enlarged, but the high contrast is also maintained. Furthermore, the mode can fabricate some specific interferential patterns by adding some modulating techniques to the waveguide. So the mode has potential application in the fabrication of sub-wavelength patterns.