Analysis of the Scattering of Surface Plasmon Polariton Waves from a Perfectly Conducting Circular Cylinder

Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waves are the most extensively studied waves among various types of surface waves because they are easy to excite and have been used in many optical applications particularly for plasmonic communication, sensing, and harvesting solar energy. In all these applications, especially on-chip plasmonic communication, scattering can be an important issue to deal with. Therefore, this paper aimed to theoretically inspect the scattering pattern of SPP waves from a perfect electric conductor (PEC) cylindrical scatterer. The cylindrical wave approach is used to solve the scattering problem by a cylindrical object placed below a metallic layer. The scattering is investigated thoroughly by changing the size of the scatterer and its distance from the interface along which the SPP wave is excited. As the size of the scatterer increases, the scattering increases significantly. On the other hand, when the distance of the scatterer from the interface is increased, the scattered field becomes small. Two-dimensional field maps are produced for the incident angle at which SPP is excited. Numerical results are also presented for other incident angles to make a comparison. Furthermore, the forward and backward far-fields are significantly enhanced if the SPP wave is scattered in comparison with when the SPP wave is not present.