Electric and magnetic excitation of coherent magnetic plasmon waves in a one-dimensional meta-chain

A one-dimensional diatomic meta-chain with equal-size holes and different-length slits is designed. Broadband coherent magnetic plasmon waves (MPW) are formed in such a system, excited by both the electric resonance in the slits and the magnetic resonance in the holes in a wide range of incidence angles (0 degrees - 40 degrees)and broad frequency bands (200-230 THz). The dispersion properties of the MPW measured in our experiments agree with the theoretical calculation based on the Lagrange model. The coherent MPWs reported in this paper may have applications in subwavelength integrated nanocircuits. (C)2010 Optical Society of America