Nonlinear complex modes of plasmonic waveguides

Jos\'e R. Salgueiro and Yuri S. Kivshar

Universidad de Vigo, Spain

We calculate and analyze the modes of metal-dielectric nanophotonic structures taking into account the effect of losses in the metallic claddings. The study is carried out considering the dielectric material as a nonlinear medium with a Kerr-like response. We study the effect of losses calculating and analyzing the complex modes and its structural transformation, using the power dispersion curves, i. e. the dependence of power on the propagation constant. We show that losses bring novel features to the nonlinear systems, including novel types of guided modes and bifurcation points. Propagation through these structures is modeled using the FDTD method which is used to stuy the mode stability.