Plasmonic nanolayer composites: Coupled plasmon polaritons, effective-medium response, and subdiffraction light manipulation

We analyze the evolution of the modes in nanoplasmonic multilayered structures and study the transition of the optical properties of these systems to the effective-medium regime. We derive the effective-medium parameters and study the validity of our analytical results with exact numerical solutions of Maxwell equations. Finally, we explore the applications of multilayered systems for subwavelength light confinement in planar and circular waveguides. Copyright (C) 2007.