Fabrication and optical characterization of long-range   surface-plasmon-polariton waveguides in the NIR
  We experimentally demonstrate the propagation of long-range surface plasmon-polaritons in a nobel metal stripe waveguide at an optical wavelength of 780 nm. To minimize propagation damping the lithographically structured waveguide is produced from a thin gold stripe embedded in a dielectric polymer. Our waveguide geometry supports a symmetric fundamental and anti-symmetric first order mode. For the fundamental mode we measure a propagation loss of $(6.12^{+0.66} _{-0.54})$ dB/mm, in good agreement with numerical simulations using a vectorial eigenmode solver. Our results are a promising starting point for coupling fluorescence of individual solid state quantum emitters to integrated plasmonic waveguide structures. 
Markus Weber, Johannes Trapp, Florian Boehm, Peter Fischer, Marion   Kraus, Toshiyuki Tashima, Lars Liebermeister, Philipp A...
physics.optics cond-mat.mes-hall quant-ph