Numerical Simulations of a Surface Plasmonic Waveguide with three circular air cores

In this paper, a kind of surface plasmonic waveguide (SPW) with three circular air cores is presented. Based on the finite-difference frequency-domain (FDFD) method, dependence of the distribution of energy flux density, effective index, propagation length and mode area of the fundamental mode on the geometrical parameters and the working wavelengths is analyzed firstly. Then, comparison with the SPW which was proposed in our previous work has been carried out. Results show that this kind of three cores structure has better propagation properties than the double cores structure. To investigate the relative advantages of this kind of SPW over other previous reported SPWs, comparison with the SPW with a single wedge has been carried out. Results show that this kind of SPW has shorter propagation length and larger mode area. Finally, the possibility to overcome the large propagation loss by using a gain medium as core material is investigated. Since the propagation properties can be adjusted by the geometrical and electromagnetic parameters, this kind of surface plasmonic waveguide can be applied to the field of photonic components in the integrated optical circuits and sensors. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America