Extended long range plasmon waves in finite thickness metal film and layered dielectric materials

In this paper, we show that the propagation distance of the long range plasmon wave mode guided by a finite thickness gold metal film can be extended several orders of magnitude longer if we place intermediate dielectric layers on both sides of the metal film and choose the layer thickness properly. The propagation distance goes to infinite if the intermediate layer thickness approaches a critical thickness. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.