Slowing surface plasmon polaritons on plasmonic coupled cavities by tuning grating grooves

We investigate slow surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in plasmonic waveguiding bands formed by coupled plasmonic cavities on Moire surfaces. We demonstrate controlling the group velocity and dispersion of the SPPs by varying the depth of the plasmonic Bragg grating groove. Changing the grating depth results in modification of coupling coefficients between the cavities and hence the SPPs group velocity is altered. Variation in the group velocity and dispersion of SPPs can be measured with polarization dependent spectroscopic reflection measurements. Dispersion of SPPs has been calculated by finite-difference time-domain method in agreement with the experimental data. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3495781]