IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 12, NO.
6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006
Plasmonics: The Promise of Highly Integrated
Optical Devices
Stefan A. Maier
(Invited Paper)
Abstract—This paper reviews the fundamentals of surface plas-
mon polariton (SPP) excitations sustained by interfaces between
metallic and insulating media, with a focus on applications in
waveguiding of electromagnetic waves at visible and near-infrared
frequencies. The large wavevectors accessible via SPP oscillations
allow for significantly reduced wavelengths and thus increased con-
finement of the propagating modes, promising a subwavelength
photonic infrastructure suitable for integration on Si-based pho-
tonic chips. Various geometries such as single interfaces, multi-
layer structures, and nanoparticle ensembles are discussed and
their properties assessed in terms of light confinement and energy
attenuation of the guided modes. Metal/insulator/metal (MIM) and
certain forms of nanoparticle waveguides promise novel avenues
for light confinement, guiding, and coupling, which could provide
the basis for subwavelength photonic devices.
Index Terms—Nanophotonics, optoelectronics, plasmonics.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE miniaturization of photonic devices for guiding and
T confining electromagnetic energy to size scales compati-
ble with those of highly integrated electronic circuits currently
poses one of the biggest challenges for the information technol-
ogy industries. In the area of electronic circuits for information
processing, the switch from micro- to nanoscale integration is
well underway: components of CMOS logic circuits have en-
tered the sub-100-nm size scale, and quantum effects begin to
govern the electronic function of devices in both semiconductor-
based nanoelectronics and emerging areas such as molecular
electronics [1]. Apart from considerable fabrication challenges,
further size reduction of nanoelectronic circuits will be gov-
erned by the constraints imposed by the switch to quantum
information processing and ultimately by the physical limits of
computation imposed by energy and entropy considerations [2].
However, miniaturization of photonic devices such as waveg-
uides and cavities for guiding and confining electromagnetic en-
ergy at visible and near-infrared frequencies toward the sub-100-
nm size scale is limited by the well-known diffraction limit of
light. This fundamental barrier is a direct consequence of the
three-dimensional (3-D) nature of waves propagating in dielec-
tric materials, which are usually the building blocks of integrated
optical components [3], and can be derived from elementary
Manuscript received October 31, 2005; revised August 14, 2006. This work
was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research
Council (EPSRC), U.K.
The author is with the Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials,
Department of Physics, University of Bath, Bath BA2 7AY, U.K. (e-mail:
s.maier@bath.ac.uk).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTQE.2006.884086
1077-260X/$20.00 © 2006 IEEE
1671
considerations: for a nonmagnetic core with dielectric constant
εcore > 0 of a dielectric waveguide, the dispersion relation re-
lating the propagation constant β = kz and the transverse phase
constants kx and ky of the wavevector of the propagating beam
to the frequency can be written as
ω2
β 2 + kx2 + ky2 = εcore . (1)
c2
For a 3-D wave, both kx and ky are real, thus, (1) implies
an upper limit on the transverse phase constants via kx , ky ≤
√
ω/c εcore = 2πncore /λ0 , where ncore and λ0 are the refrac-
tive indices of the core and the wavelength of the radiation in
vacuum, respectively. Via Fourier reciprocity, this upper limit
for the transverse phase constants leads directly to a lower limit
of the lateral mode size of the 3-D wave propagating in the
waveguide [4]
λ0
d x , dy ≥ . (2)
2ncore
This fundamental limit for the size of the optical mode propa-
gating in dielectric waveguides of about half the wavelength in
the host medium not only applies to homogeneous media, but
also to beams propagating in line defect waveguides in photonic
crystals, and more generally to any structure where the confine-
ment results from interference effects such as Bragg reflection.
In analogy to the transverse mode size in waveguides, the effec-
tive mode volume of optical microcavities is also fundamentally
limited by diffraction [5], and there is currently a significant
effort in establishing broad design principles [6] to create di-
electric photonic devices with mode volumes approaching this
fundamental barrier of (λ/2n)3 .
In order to break the diffraction limit, clearly a different ap-
proach from the simple scaling down of dielectric micropho-
tonic waveguides and cavities is needed. In order to create opti-
cal modes with lateral sizes in the deep subwavelength regime,
lower dimensional optical waves, where one or both of the lat-
eral phase constants kx and ky are imaginary, have to be em-
ployed. As (1) suggests, such low-dimensional waves can be
achieved for core materials where εcore < 0, i.e., with metals
up to ultraviolet frequencies. In this case, the upper limit (2)
does not apply, and waveguides as well as cavities with effec-
tive mode areas and volumes on the deep subwavelength scale
breaking the diffraction limit can be realized. The respective
modes occurring at the interface between a metal and a di-
electric are called surface-plasmon polaritons (SPPs) or short
surface plasmons (SPs), and in recent years, an explosion of re-
search interest in nanoscale metallic structures sustaining both
propagating and localized SPs has been seen. Fueled by rapid
1672 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 12, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006
advances in computational design, nanofabrication, and near-
field optical characterization techniques, the field of plasmonics
has emerged, with the goal of creating a subwavelength pho-
tonic infrastructure for the guiding and confinement of electro-
magnetic energy for applications in photonics, optoelectronics,
imaging, and biological sensing [7]–[9].
In this paper, the current state of progress in the area of
plasmon waveguides, realized via metallic micro- and nanos-
tructures for the guiding of electromagnetic energy at visible
and near-infrared frequencies, will be reviewed. Special atten-
tion will be placed on the inherent tradeoff between localiza-
tion and loss: small mode sizes imply significant penetration
of the electromagnetic energy into the metal, thus leading to
increased attenuation. After a review of the basics of SPP ex-
citation at a single metal/dielectric interface, prominent ge-
ometries for guiding energy with subwavelength confinement
in the form of metal/insulator/metal (MIM) gap waveguides
will be described. Apart from dispersive plasmons propagating
at metal/dielectric interfaces, plasmon excitations localized to
metal nanoparticles or nanometric gaps between metallic sur-
faces provide another mechanism for energy guiding via near-
field coupling. The important problem of effectively launching
SPs will also be addressed. In the last part of this review, a few
paragraphs will explore future prospects and the challenge of
CMOS compatibility. For a more in-depth review on different
aspects of plasmonics apart from waveguiding, such as biolog-
ical sensing and the enhancement of nonlinear processes due
to heightened fields at the metal surface, the enhancement of
transmission through metallic films, and imaging applications
can be found in recent reviews by Maier and Atwater [8] and
Barnes et al. [9].
II. SPPS AT A SINGLE INTERFACE AND
INSULATOR/METAL/INSULATOR (IMI) WAVEGUIDES
A. Single Metal/Dielectric Interface
SPPs are coherent longitudinal charge oscillations of the con-
duction electrons of a metal film occurring at the interface with
a dielectric, and were first described theoretically [10] and ob-
served experimentally [11] in a context of plasma losses of fast
electrons impinging on thin metallic films. Since the real part of
the dielectric function ε(ω) of metallic media is negative up to
the (bulk) plasmon or plasma frequency ωp , and thus of oppo-
site sign as the dielectric constant ε2 of the adjacent dielectric,
continuity in the normal component of the displacement field
demands bound electromagnetic surface waves confined within
one dimension perpendicular to the surface. For excitation with
fast electrons, these excitations occur√ at the characteristic sur-
face plasmon frequency ωsp = ωp / 1 + ε2 and show a group
velocity close to 0. This lowering of the resonance frequency
with respect to bulk (volume) plasmon excitations is due to the
depolarizing effect of the flat interface.
The dispersion relation ω(β) of SPPs at a single, flat interface
between a metal and a dielectric of the geometry shown in the
inset of Fig. 1 can be calculated via an elementary boundary
condition analysis for TM-polarized waves [12] sustained by
Fig. 1. Dispersion relations of surface plasmon polaritons at the interface
between a Drude metal with negligible collision frequency and air (gray lines)
and silica (black lines), respectively. Inside the frequency gap between the
respective surface plasmon frequency ω sp and the plasma frequency ω p , the
wavevectors are purely imaginary (broken lines).
the interface to


ω ε(ω)ε2
β= . (3)
c ε(ω) + ε2
Fig. 1 shows this dispersion relation for the interface between
a Drude metal in the limit of negligible collision frequency
(ε(ω) = 1 − ωp2 /ω 2 ) and air (gray lines) or silica (black lines)
as the dielectric, respectively. In this plot, the frequency ω
is normalized to the plasma frequency ωp , and both the real
(continuous lines) and the imaginary part (broken lines) of the
wavevector β are shown. Due to their bound nature, the SPP ex-
citations correspond to the part of the dispersion lying to the right
of the respective light lines of air and silica, and thus require
phase-matching techniques such as grating or prism coupling
for excitation via 3-D beams [12]. For small wavevectors cor-
responding to low (microwave or below) frequencies, the SPP
dispersion is close to the light line, and the waves acquire the
nature of a grazing-incidence light field. For high wavevectors,
the frequency approaches the aforementioned surface plasmon
frequency ωsp . In the limit of negligible damping of the con-
duction electron oscillation (ε(ω) purely real), the wavevector β
approaches infinity as the frequency approaches ωsp . Radiation
into the metal occurs in the transparency regime ω > ωp . Be-
tween the regime of bound and radiative waves, a frequency gap
region with purely imaginary β prohibiting propagation exists.
For real metals showing both free electron and interband
absorption, ε(ω) is complex, and the propagation of SPPs is
damped with an energy attenuation length L = (2 Im(β))−1 ,
typically between 10 and 100 µm in the visible regime depend-
ing upon the exact metal/dielectric configuration. For example,
Fig. 2 shows the dispersion relation of SPPs propagating at the
Ag/air and Ag/silica interface, with the dielectric function ε(ω)
of Ag taken from the data obtained by Johnson and Christy [13].
Compared with the dispersion relation of completely undamped
SPPs depicted in Fig. 1, it can be seen that the bound SPPs
approach now a maximum, finite wavevector at the surface plas-
mon frequency ωsp . This limit in wavevector puts a lower bound
both on the wavelength λsp = 2π/Re(β) of the propagating
MAIER: PLASMONICS: THE PROMISE OF HIGHLY INTEGRATED OPTICAL DEVICES
Fig. 2. Dispersion of the surface plasmons propagating at the Ag/air (gray
line) and Ag/silica (black line) interfaces. Due to damping, the wavevector of
the bound SPP approaches a finite limit as the surface plasmon frequency is
approached.
surface plasmon and thus also on the amount of the mode
confinement perpendicular to the interface, since  the SPP fields
in the dielectric fall off as e−|k z ||z | with kz = ε2 (ω/c)2 − β 2
perpendicular to the interface.
In order to create a waveguiding infrastructure using SPPs
propagating at the single interface between a (thick) metal film
and a dielectric, clearly a lateral confinement of the SPP mode
is needed. This can be achieved through a modification of the
SPP dispersion relation via local changes of the metal surface
topology (such as bumps or holes), creating essentially designer
photonic surfaces. Using this principle, waveguiding over dis-
tances of a couple of micrometers in line defects in a SPP band
gap surface consisting of a hexagonal lattice of metallic bumps
on an underlying continuous metal surface has been recently
demonstrated [14], although clearly more work in this area is
needed for exploring the practicability of electromagnetic en-
ergy guiding via such surface plasmonic crystals. An easier route
to lateral confinement is achieved via simply limiting the lateral
extend of the metallic film.
B. IMI Multilayers and Stripe Waveguides
In the history of research on SPPs, it has been recognized
early on that the finite penetration depth of the mode into the
metal (typically of the order of 20–30 nm in the visible and near-
infrared regime) leads to coupled plasmon modes in multilayer
systems consisting of thin (thickness t < 50 nm) metallic and
dielectric films, and dispersion relations of SPPs propagating in
IMI and MIM structures have been calculated [15]. The judi-
cious choice between these two fundamental geometries and the
respective thickness of the metallic or insulating core allows for
a wide tunability in both mode localization and the associated
propagation losses. This section will focus on the IMI geome-
try. In this case, the exponentially decaying field inside the thin
metal film from one surface supporting the SPPs can couple with
an SPP mode at the other interface, provided that the thickness
t of the metal film is small enough so that the evanescent tails
of the respective modes show considerable overlap, leading to
the establishment of two guided and leaky waves of opposite
parities [16]. For a thin metal film embedded in a symmetric
1673
dielectric environment, the SPP frequencies of the top and bot-
tom surfaces are equal. Two solutions for purely bound coupled
SPP modes exist for an infinitely wide metallic thin film—a
high-frequency odd mode showing an asymmetric distribution
of the component of the electric field in propagation direction
(longitudinal component associated with the collective electron
oscillations) and a low-frequency even mode. Both modes ex-
hibit marked differences in their behaviors with decreasing film
thickness, due to different symmetries of their spatial field distri-
butions. The odd mode shows a node of the longitudinal electric
field component in the symmetry plane of the three-layer sys-
tem, and penetrates less and less into the metal for decreasing
thickness. In the limit of an infinitely thin film, it evolves into the
fundamental TEM mode propagating in the homogeneous em-
bedding material, permitted by the symmetric distribution of the
perpendicular component of the electric field. Thus, the attenua-
tion decreases significantly with decreasing film thickness, with
a concomitant decrease in confinement. This mode has thus been
named a long-ranging SPP [17]. For surface plasmons, the low
attenuation of the bound odd mode for small metal core thick-
nesses of IMI multilayer systems allows propagation distances
one to two orders of magnitude longer than those for a thick
metal film. Apart from its multi-centimeter propagation length
for sufficiently thin metallic films (t ≈ 10 nm), its mode profile
lends itself to efficient end-fire excitation schemes [16]. Con-
versely, the bound even mode shows the opposite behavior with
respect to both propagation constant and attenuation—its field
becomes more and more confined to the metal with decreasing
film thickness, since a mode with an asymmetric transverse elec-
tric field component cannot exist in a homogeneous background
material. Both bound modes do not show a cutoff thickness for
a symmetric environment. For thin metal films embedded in an
asymmetric environment, the situation becomes more compli-
cated due to a mismatch in surface plasmon frequency between
the low- and high-index interface, leading to a cut-off height for
the mode showing decreasing attenuation with film thickness,
which increases with increasing dielectric mismatch, lowering
the propagation length.
The IMI multilayer system can be converted into a two-
dimensional (2-D) SPP waveguide by limiting its lateral extent
to a finite width w. For the case of w/t  1, this geometry
has recently received considerable attention due to promising
applications for guiding electromagnetic energy at both visible
and near-infrared frequencies in the telecommunications band.
In contrast to arbitrarily wide thin metal films, for finite w the
modes are not purely TM in nature. As for infinitely wide metal
slabs however, there exists a marked difference between slabs
embedded in a symmetric and asymmetric dielectric environ-
ment [18], [19]. In a symmetric environment, four fundamental
and a number of higher order modes can be found and classi-
fied according to their symmetries with respect to the horizontal
and vertical symmetry planes of the slabs [18]. As for the in-
finitely wide metal film, one of the fundamental modes shows
low-loss behavior for diminishing stripe thickness, and is addi-
tionally the only allowed mode below a certain cut-off thickness
determined by the stripe width and the dielectric environment.
This mode can show low attenuation constants of the order of
1674 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 12, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006
10–0.1 dB/cm in the telecommunications band, and exhibits a
Gaussian mode profile for sufficiently thin films, allowing the
use of efficient end-fire coupling techniques. First demonstra-
tions have employed Au stripe waveguides excited at a wave-
length of 1.5 µm embedded in a silica [20] host. More recently,
functional devices such as switches and modulators based on
this waveguiding principle have been demonstrated for stripe
waveguides embedded in a polymer [21] host.
While the large propagation lengths of electromagnetic modes
sustained by thin IMI stripe waveguides have shown a consider-
able potential for long-range waveguiding based on SPPs, these
geometries are not suitable for creating subwavelength photonic
waveguides for the following reasons: firstly, in the regime of
long-range guiding (corresponding to t < 20 nm), the mode,
while still 2-D in nature, is only weakly confined normal to
the plane of the waveguide, with an evanescent tail penetrating
the adjacent dielectrics over distances corresponding to multiple
wavelengths in the dielectric. This is a consequence of the afore-
mentioned tradeoff between localization and loss: long-range
guiding implies weak localization. Thus, subwavelength con-
finement cannot be achieved, which also fundamentally limits
the packing density of IMI waveguides [22]. Moreover, long-
ranging SPP modes have thus far only been observed in stripe
waveguides with w/t  1, and a significant decrease in the
overall mode confinement has been predicted for stripe waveg-
uides sustaining a long-ranging mode for the regime w < 1 µm.
Recent theoretical work analyzing a number of waveguide ex-
periments in IMI stripe geometries has further confirmed the
observed significant increase in modal loss for this small-width
regime [23], [24].
In order to provide a truly subwavelength confinement of the
optical mode using a single metallic film embedded in a dielec-
tric, both the height t and width w of the metal structure have
to be chosen of subwavelength dimensions: the ultimate scaling
down of the metal stripe waveguides thus results in metallic
nanowires with a cross section significantly smaller than the
diffraction limit of light. It has recently been demonstrated that
such nanowires can be used as waveguides for electromagnetic
energy with a mode confinement below the diffraction limit [25],
and unidirectional propagation in bimetallic nanowire systems
has been reported [26]. The subwavelength confinement leads to
typical propagation lengths of the order of a couple of microme-
ters. Significantly more work is needed to fully understand SPP
modes guided by such structures.
III. SPP GAP MODES IN MIM GEOMETRIES FOR
SUBWAVELENGTH CONFINEMENT
A simple geometry allowing subwavelength confinement of
electromagnetic energy and thus a potentially high packing den-
sity of waveguides is the above-mentioned MIM multilayer sys-
tem, where the electromagnetic mode is confined in the form
of a coupled surface plasmon propagating in a deep subwave-
length dielectric core surrounded by metallic claddings (Fig. 3
inset). In the vertical z-direction perpendicular to the plane of
the dielectric core, the mode is confined via a coupled SPP sus-
tained by the metallic boundaries. Laterally, the physical extent
Fig. 3. Dispersion relation of the fundamental coupled SPP modes of a
Ag/air/Ag multilayer geometry for an air core of size 100 nm (broken gray
line), 50 nm (broken black line), and 25 nm (continuous black line). Also shown
is the dispersion of an SPP at a single Ag/air interface and the Ag/air light line
(gray line).
of the waveguide together with the increased wave vector of
the surface plasmon mode propagating in the x-direction will
lead to confinement. The basic features can be well analyzed
in a one-dimensional (1-D) model (infinite lateral extent) of a
canonical planar metal–air–metal heterostructure composed of
an air (ε1 = 1) core of width 2a surrounded by two metallic
half-spaces. As is well known, such a heterostructure can sup-
port two surface modes propagating in the x-direction parallel
to the interfaces that are set up by coupling of the SPP modes
of the individual air/metal boundaries [27]. We will focus here
on the mode of the odd vector parity, which does not have a
cut-off gap size and shows a symmetric scalar field distribu-
tion of the dominant electric field component Ez , with respect
to the symmetry plane, as depicted in the right inset of Fig. 3
(this is the lowest order capacitor-type mode). The dielectric re-
sponse of the metallic half-spaces is modeled using a Drude fit
to the dielectric function ε(ω) for Ag at visible and near-infrared
frequencies [13]. The dispersion of this mode is given by the
implicit relation between the propagation constant β = kx and
the dielectric response of the metal cladding and air gap via
ε1 u
tanh(wa) = − (4)
ε(ω) w
 
where u = β 2 − k 2 ε(ω) and w = β 2 − k 2 ε1 .
Fig. 3 shows the dispersion relation of the capacitor-like mode
for varying gap sizes. The dispersion for a single interface is
also shown (gray line), which coincides with the dispersion for
large gap sizes. An important point to note here is that large
propagation constants β can be achieved even for excitation
far below the bulk metal plasma frequency provided that the
chosen gap width is sufficiently small. As has been pointed
out in a previous work on subwavelength guiding structures
[4], the ability to access such large wavevectors by adjusting
the geometry indicates that the localization effects for a single
interface can only be sustained at excitations near the material
plasma resonance; however, it can also be attained for this gap
structure for the excitation in the mid- and far-infrared region.
MIM plasmon waveguides show potential for high-density
subwavelength integration on optical chips both from the point
MAIER: PLASMONICS: THE PROMISE OF HIGHLY INTEGRATED OPTICAL DEVICES
Fig. 4. Absorption spectrum of an aqueous solution of 30 nm Au colloids
(gray squares) and calculations using classical electromagnetic (Mie) theory
(gray circles). Also shown is the calculated absorption spectrum of a thin Au
film (dark circles). The strong absorption peak in the green part of the spectrum
leads to the bright red color of glass doped with Au nanoparticles in transmitted
light as seen in the Lycurgus cup (courtesy British Museum).
of view of achievable minimal pitch size between adjacent
waveguides [28] and from the fact that 90◦ bends and split-
ters can potentially be realized with no additional losses [29].
For example, estimates show that for a working wavelength
λ = 1.5 µm Al-based MIM structures can allow for a 700 nm
pitch between adjacent waveguide cores while still providing a
propagation length of the order of 50 µm [28].
IV. LOCALIZED PLASMONS IN METALLIC NANOPARTICLES AND
NANOPARTICLE WAVEGUIDES
Another noteworthy concept for the confinement and guiding
of electromagnetic waves utilizes the strong interaction of metal-
lic nanoparticles with visible light. Indeed, the optical properties
of metal nanoparticles, especially those of the noble metals, Au,
Ag, and Cu, show striking differences with respect to their bulk
or thin-film optical responses. As an example, Fig. 4 shows
the calculated absorption of a thin Au film (dark circles), as
well as that of 30 nm Au spheres immersed in water (gray cir-
cles), where the dispersion properties of Au have been modeled
using measured dielectric data for bulk Au [13]. For nanopar-
ticles, the optical absorption spectrum has been obtained by
directly solving Maxwell’s equations for the scattering problem
of electromagnetic waves by spherical objects as first carried
out by Mie [30], and retaining only the dipolar term. This is
justified for nanoparticles with diameter d  λ, where λ is the
wavelength of light in the surrounding medium. As shown, this
quasi-static approximation is in good agreement with measure-
ments (squares), which has been confirmed via a plethora of
studies of the optical response of metallic nanoparticles of dif-
ferent shapes in solid, liquid, and gaseous environments [31].
Fig. 4 demonstrates the striking difference between the optical
response of the thin film and nanoparticles. Whereas the film
absorbs light throughout the near-infrared and visible region
due to free-electron absorption, for nanoparticles this process is
strongly quenched for energies lower than 2 eV. Indeed, all the
free electron oscillator strength for absorption is pulled into a
dipolar absorption peak around 2.25 eV, the dipolar surface plas-
1675
mon particle resonance. This modified optical response leads to
bright colors glass stained with such particles (Fig. 4). For higher
energies above the dipole resonance, the optical absorption of
particles and films are similar, due to the dominance of d–sp
electronic interband transitions, which are prominent for Au
and Cu in the vicinity of the dipole plasmon resonance, but less
so for Ag.
The resonant electromagnetic behavior of noble metal
nanoparticles is due to the confinement of the conduction elec-
trons to the small particle volume. For particles with d  λ,
the conduction electrons inside the particle move collectively
in phase upon plane-wave excitation, leading to the buildup of
polarization charges on the particle surface. These charges act as
an effective restoring force, allowing for a resonance to occur at
a specific frequency—the particle dipole plasmon frequency—
where the response of electrons shows a π/2 phase-lag with
respect to the driving field. Thus, a resonantly enhanced field
builds up inside the particle, which in the small particle limit is
homogeneous throughout its volume, producing a dipolar field
outside the particle. This leads to enhanced absorption and scat-
tering cross sections for electromagnetic waves, as well as to
a strongly enhanced near field in the immediate vicinity of the
particle surface. For larger particles, the spectral response is
modified due to retardation effects and excitation of higher or-
der (quadrupole) modes [30]. In general, the spectral position,
damping, and strength of the dipole as well as of the higher
order plasmon resonances of single metal nanoparticles depend
on particle material, size, geometry, and the dielectric function
of the surrounding host [31].
Excitation of metallic nanoparticles at their plasmon fre-
quency leads to a resonantly enhanced field confined to the
surface of the nanostructure, with typical penetration depths
into the surrounding dielectric of a fraction of the wavelength λ
in the material. This resonantly enhanced field effectively serves
as a probe of the dielectric environment, enabling applications
in biological sensing and in the enhancement of nonlinear light
interactions for nonlinear host materials [8]. Additional field
confinement can be achieved via random or regular ensembles
of closely spaced metallic nanoparticles. In the simple case of
a 1-D chain of metallic nanoparticles with a nanometric center-
to-center particle separation d, near-field interactions between
the particle dipoles dominate [32], [33]. Such 1-D arrays of
metallic nanoparticles can thus guide electromagnetic energy
via near-field dipole coupling upon local excitation at the par-
ticle plasmon frequency. Due to a high confinement of energy
to the nanoparticle structure, a lateral mode profile below the
diffraction limit is possible [34]. However, excitation at the par-
ticle dipole plasmon frequency implies that a significant amount
of energy of the electromagnetic mode resides in the metal par-
ticles themselves, and thus attenuation lengths for this geometry
are below 1 µm. Using the aperture of a near-field optical micro-
scope as a local excitation source, evidence for energy transport
over a distance of 500 nm has been obtained [35].
Slightly longer energy attenuation lengths can be obtained
via the excitation of gap instead of particle plasmons modes.
Nanometric gaps between adjacent metallic nanoparticles can
be thought of as an MIM waveguide of finite length L in the
1676 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN QUANTUM ELECTRONICS, VOL. 12, NO. 6, NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2006
Fig. 5. Electric field distribution around nanoparticle plasmon waveguides
excited using a longitudinally polarized point-dipole located to the left
of the waveguide at λ = 500 nm (top), 429 nm (center), and 390 nm (bot-
tom). In the case of resonant excitation at 429 nm, the energy is efficiently
guided along the array. The color scale spans five orders of magnitude in the
absolute value of the electric field.
direction perpendicular to the particle chain axis. The propagat-
ing gap plasmon modes get reflected at the impedance mismatch
with air boundaries, and thus act as nanoscale Fabry–Perot-type
resonators, which can couple along the nanoparticle chain
via evanescent interactions. Due to the large wavevector and
corresponding small wavelength of the coupled gap plasmon
mode, the fundamental mode can be excited for lateral particle
dimensions of the order of λ/10 for gaps <50 nm. Fig. 5 shows
as an example a finite difference time domain simulation of a
metal nanoparticle waveguide consisting of 50 × 50 × 50 nm3
Ag cubes separated by 20 nm gaps in air. The fundamental
gap mode is excited at a free-space wavelength λ = 429 nm,
and allows for energy transport with an attenuation length
α = 1100 nm. In contrast to nanoparticle waveguides operating
via the principle of resonant particle plasmon excitation [34],
in this case the electromagnetic energy is mostly confined to
the gaps between adjacent particles, in agreement with earlier
experimental observations of a squeezed near -field in such
structures [36]. Such a geometry should show advantages for
applications such as biological sensing or the integration of
nonlinear elements into the field hot-spots between particles.
Apart from high-confinement energy guiding using resonant
excitations of particle or gap plasmons, regular 2-D arrays of
metallic particles can also act as stripe-like waveguides showing
attenuation lengths of the order of 100 µm when excited at fre-
quencies lower than the respective particle plasmon frequency.
In this case, the amount of energy penetrating into the particles
and thus the absorptive losses are significantly reduced. How-
ever, another lateral confinement mechanism is needed in order
to combat radiative losses of the nonresonantly excited parti-
cles to keep the energy confined to the nanoparticle structure.
One prominent approach utilizing a 2-D square lattice of Au
nanoparticles on a thin Si membrane has recently been theo-
retically described [37] and experimentally demonstrated [38].
Fig. 6(a) shows the electromagnetic mode profile of a waveguide
designed to operate at a wavelength λ = 1.6 µm in the telecom-
munication band consisting of a square lattice of nanoparticles
with a lattice constant of 500 nm. In order to ensure good lateral
mode confinement, a lateral grade in nanoparticle size is em-
ployed to provide index guiding, while the mode perpendicular
to the waveguide is confined via a Au/air SPP and the undercut
Fig. 6. (a) Finite-difference time-domain calculated mode profile of a fiber-
accessible metal nanoparticle waveguide consisting of a 2-D array of metal
nanoparticles on a thin Si membrane. (b) Transmission spectrum of a fiber taper
placed in close proximity to the waveguide, showing phase-matched power
transfer with efficiencies up to 75%. The inset shows the evolution of coupling
with decreasing taper-waveguide separation.
geometry of the Si membrane. The upper branch of the fun-
damental waveguide mode sustained by this waveguide crosses
the light lines of silica and air due to zone-folding, and thus en-
ables efficient power transfer from optical fiber tapers brought
into close proximity to the waveguide [38]. Fig. 6(b) shows
the wavelength-dependent optical power transmitted through
the taper via the coupling region, demonstrating efficient power
transfer up to 75% at the phase matching point. Such waveguides
could potentially be used as couplers from 3-D light beams prop-
agating in optical fibres to 2-D plasmon modes on a Si chip, and
thus be a solution of the coupling problem between conventional
beams and lower dimensional plasmon modes. Closely related
to this problem is the still open challenge of how to efficiently
convert a mode from low-attenuation plasmon waveguides suit-
able for power coupling to the outside world to high-attenuation,
high-confinement subwavelength plasmon waveguides.
V. CONCLUSION
SPPs propagating at the interface between metallic and dielec-
tric media offer intriguing ways to confine and guide light via
lower dimensional, dispersive surface waves. Since field pene-
tration into the metallic media is a necessary requirement for
the occurrence of SPPs, there exists a general tradeoff between
localization and loss. Thus, a judicious choice of waveguid-
ing geometry is necessary for particular applications such as a
long-range (and thus low-confinement) propagation or a high-
confinement (and thus short-range) waveguiding for achieving
a high packing density of waveguides on future optical chips.
Both MIM waveguides and nanoparticle gap waveguides cur-
rently offer routes to deep subwavelength confinement in nano-
metric gaps between metallic media, albeit with propagation
lengths well below 100 µm depending on the gap size and op-
erating wavelength. The optimization of the tradeoff in terms of
requirements for optical computing on Si-based chips has yet to
be performed. Promising initial demonstrations of the efficient
excitation of SPP modes on Si substrates using conventional
fiber technology have also been achieved. It remains to be seen
MAIER: PLASMONICS: THE PROMISE OF HIGHLY INTEGRATED OPTICAL DEVICES
how such coupling structures can be efficiently interfaced with
nanometric waveguides. From the materials point of view, the
vast majority of work in SPP waveguides and plasmonics in gen-
eral has thus far focused on the noble metals Au and Ag, due to
the ease of fabricating nanostructures and the fortunate optical
properties of these metals at near-infrared and visible frequen-
cies up to the onset of their interband transitions. Metals showing
compatibility with current CMOS processing techniques such
as Al or Cu also offer the possibility of plasmon excitation at vis-
ible and even ultraviolet frequencies, and an active exploration
of new material systems is currently underway.
After successful demonstrations of plasmon waveguides
based upon a variety of designs, the field is now at a crucial
point. For the promise of a deep subwavelength photonic ar-
chitecture to come true, the tradeoff between localization and
loss requires active functional elements such as switches be im-
plemented within the constraints of the micrometer-scale prop-
agation length. With the ever-increasing pace and breadth of
research in this area, one can be hopeful that demonstrations of
crucial active photonic function based on the plasmonic devices
are within reach.
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Stefan A. Maier is with the Centre for Photonics
and Photonic Materials, University of Bath, Bath,
U.K. He is currently a Reader in the Department of
Physics, University of Bath.