Concept of plasmonic waveguide inspired by half-mode substrate-integrated waveguide

A new concept of a plasmonic waveguide for optical frequencies is introduced. The waveguide is inspired by the half-mode substrate-integrated waveguide (HMSIW), which is in use in the microwave regime. The design of the plasmonic HMSIW however requires to take into account the particularities of the materials in the optical regime, which leads to modified design rules compared to microwave frequencies. It is shown that the proposed nanoscale plasmonic HMSIW is able to guide electromagnetic waves over a short distance while being characterized by very compact size. The design parameters found in this paper are derived from electromagnetic simulations based on the Finite-Volume Time-Domain (FVTD) method.