Upper bound on the modal material loss rate in plasmonic and metamaterial systems
Aaswath Raman, Wonseok Shin, and Shanhui Fan
Accepted
A better understanding of optical loss in plasmonic and metamaterial systems is of increasing importance for both basic and applied research in a broad range of topics including sensors, antennas, optical interconnects and photovoltaics. In this paper, we use a photonic band formalism for plasmonics to exactly derive a fundamental upper bound on the non-radiative material loss rate of modes in plasmonic, polaritonic and metamaterial systems. This bound is purely defined by material properties and cannot be overcome by device design. Moreover it is frequency-dependent in the presence of multiple Lorentz poles. We numerically verify this bound through direct calculations for a range of plasmonic systems, including optical antennas where the bound places fundamental performance constraints.