Efficient end-fire coupling of surface plasmons in a metal waveguide

We present a semi-analytical study exploring the end-fire coupling of an incident beam into a surface plasmon mode propagating on a metal–dielectric interface. An energy-conserving projection method is used to solve for the resultant reflected and transmitted fields for a given incident beam, thereby determining the efficiency of the surface plasmon coupling. The coupling efficiency is found to be periodic with waveguide width due to the presence of a coupled, transversely propagating surface plasmon. Optimization of the incident beam parameters, such as beam width, position, and wavelength, leads to numerically observed maximum efficiencies of approximately 80% when the beam width roughly matches the width of the surface plasmon.