Surface plasmon dispersion in hexagonal, honeycomb and kagome plasmonic crystals

We present a systematic experimental study on the optical properties of plasmonic crystals (PlC) with hexagonal symmetry. We compare the dispersion and avoided crossings of surface plasmon modes around the Γ-point of Au-metal hole arrays with a hexagonal, honeycomb and kagome lattice. Symmetry arguments and group theory are used to label the six modes and understand their radiative and dispersive properties. Plasmon-plasmon interaction are accurately described by a coupled mode model, that contains effective scattering amplitudes of surface plasmons on a lattice of air holes under 60°, 120°, and 180°. We determine these rates in the experiment and find that they are dominated by the hole-density and not on the complexity of the unit-cell. Our analysis shows that the observed angle-dependent scattering can be explained by a single-hole model based on electric and magnetic dipoles.