Splitting spoof surface plasmon polaritons to different directions with high efficiency in ultra-wideband frequencies

An efficient method to split spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) to different directions is proposed by designing a low-loss SSPP waveguide in an ultrawide frequency band. For this purpose, a coplanar-waveguide-based SSPP structure with double-row hole arrays etched on its middle line is first studied, which can be easily used to split the SSPP waves. Based on this method, a Y-shaped -3 dB SSPP power divider and its application on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer are presented. The experiment demonstrates that the proposed method splits the SSPP waves to different directions effectively in ultrawide frequencies (2.5-39.7 GHz) with good isolations, indicating that the proposed SSPP power divider can have good application on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and plasmonic integrated circuits. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America