Design and analysis of a polarization modulator based on surface plasmons.

In this paper, a polarization modulator is proposed, based on surface plasmons in a 1550 nm window. Following the generalized Snell's law, the meta-surface for converting an incident propagating wave to a surface wave is carefully designed with nearly 84% efficiency. Moreover, the coupling ratio for TE and TM polarization of the incident wave is calculated. Furthermore, the LiNbO3 structure is used as a polarizer. Finally, the calculations are verified by employing the rigorous numerical finite-difference time-domain simulation method, and the results are found to be in excellent agreement. Our findings may help in the realization of compact plasmonic circuits.