Surface plasmon polaritons-based integrated nanophotonic devices

One of the crucial technologies for integrated nanophotonics is the design and implementation of novel and high efficiency nanocouplers, nanoguides and other related optical components. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are a coherent oscillation of free charges in the surface of metals in resonance with the incident light wave, which have the distinguishing capabilities of enhancing the local electric field intensity as well as of confining the optical energy within the nanoscale domain. As one of the most promising candidates for nanophotonic circuits SPP-based nanoscale optical devices have attracted enormous interest in recent years. In this article we present an overview of the progress in research on the fabrication of SPP-based integrated nanophotonic components.