Magnetically-tunable cutoff in asymmetric thin metal film plasmonic waveguide

Abstract

We theoretically investigated the magnetically-tunable cutoff of long-range surface plasmon polariton along thin metal film surrounded by a magneto-optic material on one side and by a nonmagnetic dielectric on the other side. The analytically derived cutoff condition predicts that a magnetic field bias can induce a novel degenerate cutoff-state near which the beyond-cutoff radiation in one side can be switched to that in the other side by a minor variation of the magnetic field from the bias. The magnetization bias needed for the degeneracy is in proportion to the metal film thickness and in inverse proportion to the wavelength.