Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Revealing the Truth About “Trapped Rainbow” Storage of Terahertz Waves in Plasmonic Grating

  • Published:
Plasmonics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Graded grating has been commonly used to trap the plasmonic surface waves of different frequencies, called “trapped rainbow.” The physical origin is believed that the group velocity of the surface waves is decreased to zero at the trapping point because the surface wave vector can be increased to an infinite value by the graded grating. However, this theory needs to be further modified according to our results. We demonstrated the surface terahertz (THz) waves near the cutoff frequency of a grating could not be coupled into the propagated modes, but are reflected back, which means the surface THz wave vector cannot be increased to an infinite value. Hence, the trapped rainbow is actually only a kind of reflection. Furthermore, one single deeper groove is enough to reflect most of the surface THz waves, which could be an easier way to control the reflection and transmission of the surface THz waves and realize the compact integrated slowing waveguide, band-pass filter, surface THz wave switch, and reflector.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Barnes WL, Dereux A, Ebbesen TW (2003) Surface plasmon subwavelength optics. Nature 424:824

  2. Ozbay E (2006) Plasmonics: Merging Photonics and Electronics at Nanoscale Dimensions. Science 311:189

  3. Maier SA, Andrews SR, Martin-Moreno L, Garcia-Vidal FJ (2006) Terahertz Surface Plasmon-Polariton Propagation and Focusing on Periodically Corrugated Metal Wires. Phys Rev Lett 97:176805

  4. Pendry JB, Martin-Moreno L, Garcia-Vidal FJ (2004) Mimicking surface plasmons with structured surfaces. Science 305:847–848

  5. Hibbins AP, Evans BR, Sambles JR (2005) Experimental Verification of Designer Surface Plasmons. Science 308:670–672

  6. Garcia-Vidal FJ, Martin-Moreno L, Pendry JB (2005) Surfaces with holes in them: new plasmonic metamaterials. J Opt A: Pure and Appl Opt 7:S97

  7. Hibbins AP, Evans BR, Sambles JR (2005) Broadband spoof plasmons and subwavelength electromagnetic energy confinement on ultrathin metafilms. Science 308:670

  8. Shen L, Chen X, Yang TJ (2008) Terahertz surface plasmon polaritons on periodically corrugated metal surfaces. Opt Express 16:3326

  9. Maier S, Andrews S (2006) Terahertz pulse propagation using plasmon-polariton-like surface modes on structured conductive surfaces. Appl Phys Lett 88:251120

  10. Johnston MB (2007) Plasmonics: Superfocusing of terahertz waves. Nat Photon 1:14

  11. Guo B, Song G, Chen L (2007) Plasmonic very-small-aperture lasers. Appl Phys Lett 91:021103

  12. Guo B, Song G, Chen L (2009) Resonant Enhanced Wave Filter and Waveguide via Surface Plasmons. IEEE Transaction on Nanotechnology 8:408

  13. Kats MA, Woolf D, Blanchard R, Yu N, Capasso F (2011) Spoof plasmon analogue of metal-insulator-metal waveguides. Opt Express 16:14860

  14. Brucherseifer M, Nagel M, Haring Bolivar P, Kurz H, Bosserhoff A, Büttner R (2000) Label-free probing of the binding state of DNA by time-domain terahertz sensing. Appl Phys Lett 77:4049

  15. Chan WL, Moravec ML, Baraniuk RG, Mittleman DM (2008) Terahertz imaging with compressed sensing and phase retrieval. Opt Lett 33:974–976

  16. Liu HB, Plopper G, Earley S, Chen YQ, Ferguson B, Zhang XC (2007) Sensing minute changes in biological cell monolayers with THz differential time-domain spectroscopy. Biosens Bioelectron 22:1075–1080

  17. Ibraheem IA, Krumbholz N, Mittleman D, Koch M (2008) Low-Dispersive Dielectric Mirrors for Future Wireless Terahertz Communication Systems. IEEE Microw Wirel Co Lett 18:67–69

  18. Nagel M, Haring Bolivar P, Brucherseifer M, Kurz H, Bosserhoff A, Buttner R (2002) Integrated THz technology for label-free genetic diagnostics. Appl Phys Lett 80:154

  19. Shen LF, Chen XD, Yang TJ (2008) High-efficiency surface plasmonic polariton waveguides with enhanced low-frequency performance in microwave frequencies. Opt Express 16:3326–3333

  20. Wood JJ, Tomlinson LA, Hess O, Maier SA, Fernández-Domínguez AI (2012) Spoof plasmon polaritons in slanted geometries. Phys Rev B 85:075441

  21. Martin-Cano D, Nesterov ML, Fernandez-Dominguez AI, Garcia-Vidal FJ, Martin-Moreno L, Moreno E (2010) Domino plasmons for subwavelength terahertz circuitry. Opt. Express 18:754–764

  22. Martin-Cano D, Quevedo-Teruel O, Moreno E, Martin-Moreno L, Garcia-Vidal F (2011) Waveguided spoof surface plasmons with deep-subwavelength lateral confinement. Opt Lett 36:4635–4637

  23. Shen XP, Cui TJ, Martin-Cano D, Garcia-Vidal FJ (2013) Conformal surface plasmons propagating on ultrathin and flexible films. Proc Nat Acad Sci 110:40–45

  24. Shen XP, Cui TJ (2013) Planar plasmonic metamaterial on a thin film with nearly zero thickness. Appl Phys Lett 102:211909

  25. Zhu FM, Zhang YY, Shen LF, Gao Z, Electromagn J (2012) Subwavelength Guiding of Terahertz Radiation by Shallowly Corrugated Metal Surfaces. Waves and Appl 26:120–129

  26. Xiang H, Meng Y, Zhang Q et al (2015) Spoof surface plasmon polaritons on ultrathin metal strips with tapered grooves. Opt Commun 356:59–63

  27. Gao Z, Shen LF, Zheng XD (2012) Highly-Confined Guiding of Terahertz Waves Along Subwavelength Grooves. IEEE Photonics Tech L 24:1343–1345

  28. Gan Q, Fu Z, Ding YJ, Bartoli FJ (2008) Ultrawide-Bandwidth Slow-Light System Based on THz Plasmonic Graded Metallic Grating Structures. Phys Rev Lett 100:256803

  29. Guo B, Shi W, Yao J (2013) Real propagation speed of the ultraslow plasmonic THz waveguide. Appl Phys B-Lasers and Optics 340:5550

  30. Guan C, Shi J, Ding M, Wang P, Hua P, Yuan L, Brambilla G (2013) In-line rainbow trapping based on plasmonic gratings in optical microfibers. Opt Express 14:16552

  31. Zeng C, Cui Y (2012) Rainbow trapping of surface plasmon polariton waves in metal–insulator–metal graded grating waveguide. Opt Commun 290:188–191

  32. Wang G, Lu H, Liu X (2012) Trapping of surface plasmon waves in graded grating waveguide system. Appl. Phys. Lett 101:013111

  33. Guo B, Shi W, Yao J (2015) Slowing and trapping THz waves system based on plasmonic graded period grating. J Opt 45(1):50–57

  34. Tian L, Liu J, Zhou K, Yang G, Liu S (2016) Investigation of mechanism: spoof SPPs on periodically textured metal surface with pyramidal grooves. Scientific Reports 6:32008

  35. Zhang K, Li D (1998) Electromagnetic, theory for microwaves and optoelectronics springer-Verlag. Berlin, Heidelberg

  36. Liu X, Feng Y, Zhu B, Zhao J, Jiang T (2013) High-order modes of spoof surface plasmonic wave transmission on thin metal film structure. Opt Express 21:31155

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under grant no. 61605140.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Precision Instrument and Optoelectronics Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Baoshan Guo

Authors
  1. Baoshan Guo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Baoshan Guo.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Guo, B. Revealing the Truth About “Trapped Rainbow” Storage of Terahertz Waves in Plasmonic Grating. Plasmonics 13, 933–938 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-017-0590-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11468-017-0590-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation