Investigation of the dispersive properties of metal-coated optical waveguides

The sliding prism method was used to determine the losses experienced by the TE and TM modes in a glass–polymer–metal (aluminum or silver) waveguide at wavelengths in the range 0.4–1.15 μ. It was found that, in agreement with calculations, the spectral dependence of the guided mode losses was governed by the real part of the permittivity of the metal and that waveguide polarizers with an efficiency of 15–20 dB based on the dispersion in the metal were easiest to construct for the infrared range.