Surface-plasmon hopping along coupled coplanar cavities

We report on surface-plasmon propagation along coupled coplanar cavities periodically distributed in an otherwise unperturbed plasmonic crystal. We show that the dispersion of particular Bloch modes can exhibit multiple energy gaps that can be adjusted by choosing the cavity size. For resonant sizes, the composite crystals composed of juxtaposed cavities can support plasmon modes at frequencies within the gap of the unperturbed grating. In this case, we demonstrate that the surface-plasmon propagation relies on a hopping mechanism.