Analysis of Surface Plasmon Polariton Using Anisotropic Finite Elements

The anisotropic finite-element mesh is deployed in a vector finite-element method to numerically derive surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) more efficiently. The superiority of the anisotropic mesh lies in the fact that SPP modes, predictably, have a sharp field variation in the surface-normal direction, whereas the variation along the surface-tangent direction is comparably gentle. A case study on metallic fiber shows that the employment of anisotropic finite elements reduces the problem size by a factor of seven.