Azimuthally Uniform Surface-Plasma Modes in Thin Metallic Cylindrical Shells

The pure TM-polarized surface-plasma bound modes of a thin metallic right circular cylindrical shell imbedded in dielectric materials are studied. Two modes are generally found to be supported by the structure. They are analogous to the two modes of the corresponding planar structure of a thin metallic film bound by dielectrics. One of the modes is shown to have sufficiently small loss to make it of potential application in fiber optics. The transcendental equation of the modes generalizes that of the planar geometry by having the cylinder radius as a parameter. The equation is solved exactly in the complex domain for all cases considered. Analysis is made of the symmetric structure in which the dielectric media bounding the metal are identical as well as of the asymmetric structure in which the bounding media are different. Results on the single metal-dielectric cylindrical interface are also given.