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arXiv · 2303.03087

Thermal hysteresis in amplification and attenuation of surface-plasmon-polariton waves

Tom G. Mackay·Tran Vinh Son·Alain Haché·Akhlesh Lakhtakia
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Abstract

The propagation of surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves at the planar interface of a metal and a dielectric material was investigated for a dielectric material with strongly temperature-dependent constitutive properties. The metal was silver and the dielectric material was vanadium multioxide impregnated with a combination of active dyes. Depending upon the volume fraction of vanadium multioxide, either attenuation or amplification of the SPP waves may be achieved; the degree of attenuation or amplification is strongly dependent on both the temperature and whether the temperature is increasing or decreasing. At intermediate volume fractions of vanadium multioxide, for a fixed temperature, a SPP wave may experience attenuation if the temperature is increasing but experience amplification if the temperature is decreasing.

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Tom G. Mackay, Tran Vinh Son, Alain Haché, Akhlesh Lakhtakia. 2023-03-06. Thermal hysteresis in amplification and attenuation of surface-plasmon-polariton waves. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.03087

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