Simulations of Plasmonic Devices Using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain and Coupled-Wave Methods

A surface plasmon polariton (SPP) is an electromagnetic excitation existing on the metal surface. The electromagnetic behavior and interactions with metallic structures make surface plasmon (SP) possess various unusual properties. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the physical properties of extraordinary transmission, which is one the unusual properties of SP. In addition, we focus on the near field enhancement induced by SP resonance. Since the activities of SP are so sensitive to metallic structures, we introduce the finite-difference time domain and coupled-wave methods to corporately study the interactions between SP and shaped structures. At first, we examine the SP-assisted transmission and the field distributions near metal surface. Based on this analysis, we proposed a liquid crystal based plasmonic display device and further discuss its operating properties. In the following sections, we study the strong field enhancement and localization of SP and further utilize semiclassical approach to study the spontaneous emission (SE) of an atom in the presence of metallic gratings. Through various numerical studies, we also reveal some physical essence of SE behavior when an atom resonantly couples to SP modes.