Plasmonics without negative dielectrics

Abstract

Plasmonic phenomena are exhibited in light-matter interaction involving materials whose real parts of permittivity functions attain negative values at operating wavelengths. However, such materials usually suffer from dissipative losses, thus limiting the performance of plasmon-based optical devices. Here, we utilize an alternative methodology that mimics a variety of plasmonic phenomena by exploiting the well-known structural dispersion of electromagnetic modes in bounded guided-wave structures filled with only materials with positive permittivity. A key issue in design of such structures is prevention of mode coupling, which can be achieved by implementing thin metallic wires at proper interfaces. This method, which is more suitable for lower frequencies, allows designers to employ conventional dielectrics and highly conductive metals for which the loss is low at these frequencies, while achieving plasmonic features. We demonstrate, numerically and analytically, that this platform can provide surface plasmon polaritons, local plasmonic resonance, plasmonic cloaking and epsilon-near-zero (ENZ)-based tunneling using conventional positive-dielectric materials.