Power splitters for waveguides composed by ultralow refractive index metallic nanostructures

The power splitting properties of metallic photonic crystal waveguides, where the mechanism of propagation is the total external reflection, are investigated. These waveguides are composed by an air core surrounded by a cladding formed by a periodic arrangement of metallic wires on square or triangular lattices. Power splitters can be achieved by modifying the geometry at the splitting region by introducing a reflecting structure in order to increase the transmission coefficient; some splitters based on these structures are analyzed by an efficient frequency domain finite element approach. The proposed concept may open the possibility to design more sophisticated devices based on these waveguides and splitters. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.87