Coaxial hybrid plasmonic nanowire waveguides

We investigate two different types of coaxial hybrid plasmonic nanowire waveguides. The first type consists of a metal cladding, a sandwiched low index dielectric layer, and a high index dielectric core. The second type is the reverse version of the first type. We analyze their modal properties by the use of the mode hybridization concept and calculate the dispersion relations, normalized mode areas, and confinement factors. For the first kind of hybrid waveguide, we can obtain less loss with similar confinement and slightly less overlap between optical modes and the core region. For the second kind of hybrid waveguide, we can obtain strong confinement and enhanced optical fields in a low refractive index region. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America