Optical transmission on metallic wires-fundamental modes

The surface-plasmon-polaritons supported by a metal stripe are of theoretical and experimental interest. The well-known symmetric and antisymmetric modes of the slab model become the respective fundamental modes of the stripe. Their dispersion and loss characteristics are calculated for a silver stripe embedded in silicon. In contrast to the slab case, higher order modes also occur for the stripe. Corner modes that have no analogous modes in the slab model are obtained. The method of calculation used is a full-vectorial finite difference scheme for the coupled transverse components of the magnetic field.