Phase-Difference-Dependent Surface Plasmon Polariton Waveguide Coupling in a Symmetrical Dual-Channel Metal-Insulator-Metal Structure

This work reports a phase difference modulated coupling of two surface plasmon polariton (SPP) sources in a symmetrical two-channel metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide device. In the device, two sources with different initial phases interact indirectly through the function of a rectangular cavity. With the phase difference varying, we have achieved tunable SPP coupling followed by continuously adjustable filtering property and Fano resonance. Further results show that the tunable SPP coupling in the resonance cavity can be well described by the electromagnetic wave interference theory. Moreover, we have also demonstrated the excellent performance of this phase-difference-dependent MIM waveguide in refractive-index sensing and have achieved considerable sensitivity as high as 818.8 nm/RIU. This research has great significance for tunable filtering and signal compensation in MIM waveguide-based photonic chips and also provides a device with high potential in refractive-index sensing.