Nonlinear long-range plasmonic waveguides

We report on plasmonic waveguides made of a thin metal stripe surrounded on one or both sides by a Kerr nonlinear medium. Using an iterative numerical method, we investigate the stationary long-range plasmons that exist for self-focusing and self-defocusing Kerr-type nonlinearities. The solutions are similar to the well-known case of infinitely wide nonlinear waveguides-they are strongly power-dependent and can experience symmetry-breaking bifurcations under appropriate conditions. © 2010 The American Physical Society.