The effects of three-dimensional defects on one-way surface plasmon propagation for photonic topological insulators comprised of continuous media

Abstract: We have investigated the one-way surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) at the interface of a continuous magneto-plasma material and metal. We demonstrated that TM modes inside a continuous material can be assigned non-trivial Chern numbers analogous to those of topological photonic crystals; moreover these Chern numbers can be calculated analytically. This leads to the appearance of topologically protected surface modes propagating at frequencies inside the bandgap of the magneto-plasma. Previous works considered 2D structures; here we consider the effects of 3D defects, and show that, although backward propagation/reflection cannot occur, side scattering does take place and it has significant effect on the propagation of the surface mode. Several different waveguiding geometries are considered for reducing the effects of side-scattering, and we also consider the effects of metal loss.