Plasmonic Bloch oscillations and resonant Zener tunneling in subwavelength metal-dielectric-air waveguide superlattices

In this paper, we study the propagation properties of surface plasmon polaritons in plasmonic single-cavity superlattices and two-cavity superlattices which are composed of two kinds of alternately stacked subwavelength metal-dielectric-air waveguides with large dispersion. Theoretical predictions of plasmonic time-resolved Bloch oscillations existing in single-cavity superlattices and resonant Zener tunneling (ZT) occurring in two-cavity superlattices by the transfer matrix method (TMM) are well demonstrated by the numerical simulations on the propagation of SPPs pulse in the two kinds of superlattices by the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. The two proposed superlattices can be conveniently fabricated by present nanotechnology, and the study may promote the realization of plasmonic BO and resonant ZT in nanoscale devices experimentally.