Surface plasmon polariton excitation by electrostatic modulation and phase grating in indium-tin-oxide coated lithium niobate slabs
Excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a non-metal system in visible regime is discussed. With the assistance of phase grating resulted from photorefractive effect and electrostatic modulation of ITO induced by strong photovoltaic effect in iron-doped LiNbO{sub 3}, phase matching condition could be satisfied for SPP excitation in this semiconductor/dielectric system. Both the phase grating instead of metal grating and electrostatic modulation of semiconductor could be used for the design of tunable plasmonic devices based on nonlinear photorefractive crystals.