Surface-PlasmonoDielectric-Polaritonic Devices and Systems

A structure for supporting propagation of surface plasmon polaritons comprising:

• a dielectric material region;
• and
• a plasmonic material region, disposed adjacent to a selected surface of the dielectric material region and having a plasmonic-material dielectric permittivity distribution that is a function of depth through the plasmonic material region;
• the plasmonic-material dielectric permittivity distribution through the dielectric material region depth being selected to impose a prespecified set of group velocities, vgj, on a dispersion relation for a surface polaritonic mode of the structure for at least one of a corresponding set of prespecified frequencies, ωj, and a corresponding set of prespecified wavevectors, kj, where j=1 to M.

A structure for supporting propagation of surface plasmon polaritons comprising:

• a plasmonic material region;
• and
• a dielectric material region disposed adjacent to a selected surface of the plasmonic material region;
• at least one of the plasmonic material region and the dielectric material region having a dielectric permittivity distribution that is specified as a function of depth through the corresponding material region to impose a prespecified set of group velocities, vgj, on a dispersion relation for a surface polaritonic mode of the structure for at least one of a corresponding set of prespecified frequencies, ωj, and a corresponding set of prespecified wavevectors, kj, where j=1 to N.

A structure for supporting propagation of surface plasmon polaritons comprising:

• a plasmonic material region;
• and
• a dielectric material region disposed adjacent to a selected surface of the plasmonic material region;
• at least one of the plasmonic material region and the dielectric material region having a dielectric permittivity distribution that is specified as a function of depth through the corresponding material region to impose a prespecified set of frequencies, ωj, on a dispersion relation for a surface polaritonic mode of the structure for a corresponding set of prespecified wavevectors, kj, where j=2 to N.

A surface plasmon polariton waveguide comprising:

• a plasmonic material region;
• and
• a dielectric material region, disposed adjacent to a selected surface of the plasmonic material region and including a plurality of separate dielectric material layers each of a specified thickness and dielectric permittivity;
• the thickness and dielectric permittivity of each of the separate dielectric material layers being selected to impose a group velocity, vgo, on the dispersion relation for a surface polaritonic mode of the structure, with group velocity dispersion suppressed up to order N, for at least one of a specified frequency, ωo, and a specified wavevector, ko, for number of at least about N-2 dielectric layers.

A structure for supporting propagation of surface plasmon polaritons comprising:

• a plasmonic material region;
• and
• a dielectric material region disposed adjacent to a selected surface of the plasmonic material region;
• at least one of the plasmonic material region and the dielectric material region having a dielectric permittivity distribution that is specified as a function of depth through the corresponding material region to impose a prespecified set of group velocities, vgj, on a dispersion relation for a surface polaritonic mode of the structure for at least one of a corresponding set of prespecified frequencies, ωj, and a corresponding set of prespecified wavevectors, kj, where j=1 to N.