Stored light in a plasmonic nanocavity based on extremely-small-energy-velocity modes

We propose a novel scheme of the plasmonic cavity that is based on the insulator–metal–insulator (IMI) waveguide of finite length. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) guided by the IMI structure can exhibit extremely small energy velocity if the metal film is thin enough. In that case, the losses are determined mainly by the intrinsic properties of the metal rather than the geometry of the cavity. Accordingly, we should care only about the purity of the metal and need not accurately control the length of the cavity that simplifies the fabrication process. All dimensions of the cavity can be less than the wavelength of light, therefore it is a really nanoscale device. In this paper, we characterize the cavity analytically and demonstrate the stored light using our finite difference time domain (FDTD) code.