Effects of shape of terminus on excitation of surface plasmon modes on metal nanowires

The effects of the shape of a nanowire terminus on the excited surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes are investigated. The conical terminus and terminus cut at a certain angle are studied. For the first time, the quantitative mode decompositions are carried out to derive the full information about excited SPP modes. It is demonstrated that tuning the shape of the terminus provides an effective method to control the composition of excited SPP modes on metal nanowires. It is especially found that some important patterns, such as the pure TM₀ mode and the superposition of TM₀ and HE₊₁ or HE₋₁ modes, can be generated by some specific shapes of the terminus, whereas there is no way to produce these patterns using flat-end nanowires. (condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties)