Surface plasmon in slab waveguide: A verification test-bed

Since its first use in a real-time analysis of a biological system in 1990s, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) has become an important optical biosensing technology for its real-time, label-free, and noninvasive nature. In this paper we review electromagnetic theory of surface plasmons in dielectric-metal-dielectric planar waveguides and verify capabilities of an emerging computational package, COMSOL, that uses finite element methods (FEM) for analysis of plasmonic phenomena. Results of analytical and numerical methods are compared and accuracy of FEM solver is discussed.