Bends and splitters in metal-dielectric-metal subwavelength plasmonic waveguides

We investigate the performance of bends and splitters in metal-dielectric-metal subwavelength plasmonic waveguides. We show that bends and splitters with no additional loss over a very wide frequency range can be designed for metal-dielectric-metal waveguides with center layer thickness small compared to the wavelength. We also introduce the concept of characteristic impedance for such systems to account for their behavior.