title: Coupling of near-grazing microwave photons to surface plasmon polaritons via a dielectric grating
abstract: A dielectric grating on top of a planar metal substrate is shown to couple near-grazing microwave photons to surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). It is shown that when the grating grooves are oriented such that they are parallel to the plane of incidence (phi = 90 degrees), coupling to SPPs with both s- and p-polarized photons is possible at three different energies. It is demonstrated that one mode is coupled via p-polarized radiation and the other two modes are both coupled via s-polarized radiation. A multilayer, multishape differential grating theory allows the identities of each of the modes to be confirmed by modeling the electromagnetic fields above the metal substrate. In addition, a comparison between the experimentally derived reflectivity scans and the theoretical model is made.
authors.affiliation: Thin Film Photonics Group, School of Physics, University of Exeter, United Kingdom.
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Hibbins
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Sambles
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Lawrence