Dispersionless slow light in MIM waveguide based on a plasmonic analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency

We have proposed a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguide system, which exhibits a significant slow-light effect, based on a plasmonic analogue of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). By appropriately adjusting the distance between the two stubs of a unit cell, a flat band corresponding to nearly constant group index over a broad bandwidth of 8.6 THz can be achieved. The analytical results show that the group velocity dispersion (GVD) parameter can reach zero and normalized delay-bandwidth product (NDBP) is more than 0.522. Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) simulations show that the incident pulse can be slowed down without distortion owing to the low dispersion. The proposed compact configuration can avoid the distortion of signal pulse, and thus may find potential applications in plasmonic slow-light systems, especially optical buffers. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America