title: Improved bending loss characteristics of asymmetric surface plasmonic waveguides for flexible optical wiring.
abstract: We present improved characteristics of the curved plasmonic waveguide which consists of a thin metal stripe with asymmetric cladding layers. It is shown that in the proposed curved asymmetric plasmonic waveguides, a balance between a radiation due to bending and a radiation due to the asymmetric claddings allows a bending with a smaller radius curvature and a lower loss compared to the waveguide with symmetric claddings. At the same time, a symmetric metal stripe waveguide's typical trade-off between the bending characteristics and the propagation loss of a straight waveguide is relaxed with proper amount of asymmetry. With the proposed structure, a plasmonic waveguide bending whose radius is as small as 2 mm with a total loss of 1.8 dB/90 degrees is designed. Enhanced sensitivity to the surrounding medium and its application are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon 443-749, Korea.
authors.forename: Sangjun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Sangin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Hanjo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lim
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D055119:Elastic Modulus; D004735:Energy Transfer; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000295:instrumentation*