Nonlocal and Nonlinear Surface Plasmon Polaritons and Optical Spatial Solitons induced by the Thermocapillary Effect

Abstract

We study the propagation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) on a metal surface which hosts a thin film of a liquid dielectric. The ohmic losses, that are inherently present due to the coupling of SPPs to conductors' electron plasma, induce temperature gradients and fluid deformation driven by the thermocapillary effect, which lead to a nonlinear and nonlocal change of the effective dielectric constant. The latter extends beyond the regions of highest optical intensity, and constitutes a novel thermally self-induced mechanism that affects the propagation of the SPPs. We derive the nonlinear and nonlocal Schrodinger equation (NNLSE) that describes propagation of low intensity SPP beams, and show analytically and numerically that it supports a novel optical spatial soliton excitation.

arXiv comment6 PRL pages with 3 figures, and Supplemental Material

References in corpus (7)

• Photonic Floquet Topological Insulators
• Imaging topological edge states in silicon photonics
• Route to nonlocality and observation of accessible solitons
• Nonlocal stabilization of nonlinear beams in a self-focusing atomic vapor
• Plasmon-Soliton
• Ginzburg-Landau equation bound to the metal-dielectric interface and transverse nonlinear optics with amplified plasmon polaritons
• Amplification of surface plasmon polaritons in the presence of nonlinearity and spectral signatures of threshold crossover

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Transition between self-focusing and self-defocusing in nonlocally nonlinear media
• Optofluidic memory and self-induced nonlinear optical phase change for reservoir computing in silicon photonics
• Shortcuts to adiabaticity for rapid soliton compression in nonlocal media