Plasmonics in buried structures.

We describe plasmon propagation in silica-filled coupled nanovoids fully buried in gold. Propagation bands and band gaps are shown to be tunable through the degree of overlap and plasmon hybridization between contiguous voids. The effect of disorder and fabrication imperfections is thoroughly investigated. Our work explores a novel paradigm for plasmon photonics relying on plasmon modes in metal-buried structures, which can benefit from long propagation distances, cancelation of radiative losses, minimum crosstalk between neighboring waveguides, and maximum optical integration in three-dimensional arrangements.