Surface polaritons at a negative index material grating

M. CUEVAS, R. A. DEPINE

SPIE

SPIE

Año: 2009 vol. 7392 p. 1 - 8

0277-786X

The differences between the resonant response of metallic and metamaterial gratings, both supporting surface polaritons, evidence the different kind of interference processes occurring between the fields radiated by the surface polariton and the fields reflected by the surface without corrugation. As in any resonance phenomenon, complementary information can be obtained by studying the associated homogeneous problem, i.e., by finding the characteristics of the electromagnetic eigenmodes supported by the corrugated interface. In this paper we solve this associated homogeneous problem, showing how a periodic corrugation affects the characteristics of surface polaritons propagating along the interface between a conventional dielectric medium and a metamaterial medium with a negative index of refraction.