Schrodinger solitons in left-handed SiO2-Ag-SiO2 and Ag-SiO2-Ag plasmonic waveguides calculated with a nonlinear transmission line approach

The existence of solitons in SiO2-Ag-SiO2 and Ag-SiO2-Ag plasmonic waveguides (PWGs) is investigated using a nonlinear transmission line approach. Both the SiO2-Ag-SiO2 and the Ag-SiO2-Ag, the former in its TM even mode and the latter in its odd mode, are shown to support bright solitons as solutions to the nonlinear Schrodinger equation. The SiO2-Ag-SiO2 even mode has low left-handed (LH) loss but is undesirably mixed with a right-handed mode, while the Ag-SiO2-Ag odd mode exhibits low-loss pure LH characteristics and is therefore the most suited mode for soliton propagation. Soliton PWGs may find applications in compact switching, pulse shaping, and pulse compressing devices.