Conductor-gap-silicon plasmonic waveguides and passive components at subwavelength scale

Compact polarization beam splitter based on metal-capped thin-film LiNbO3-on-insulator plasmonic waveguide

The coupling of light to collective oscillation of electrons on the metal surface allows the creation of surface plasmon-polariton wave. This surface wave is of central interest in the field of plasmonics. In this paper, we will present a brief review of this field, focusing on the plasmonic waveguide and plasmonic transmission. In the plasmonic waveguide, the light can be guided along the metal surface with subwavelength lateral dimensions, enabling the possibility of high-density integration of the optical elements. On the other hand, in the plasmonic transmission, the propagation of light through a metal surface can be tailored with the subwavelength holes, leading to the anomalous transmission behaviors which have received extensive investigations in recent years. In addition, as a supplement to plasmonics in the visible and near-infrared region, the study of THz plasmonics has also been discussed.

Silicon-based integrated photonics became a very attractive technology for guiding and manipulating of light in highly integrated structures due to the large index contrast between silicon and cladding materials allowing for very high mode confinement. Moreover, these structures can be realized by conventional planar CMOS techniques. Different passive devices based on Si nanowire waveguides have been realized using SOI technology or amorphous silicon deposition with applications in highly integrated communication systems for optical networking, bio and sensing, as well as for computer interconnects in data centers. Nevertheless for future use, especially for inter-core and intra-core computer communication, structures allowing for subwavelength light confinement based on surface plasmon waveguiding are an attractive solution. Different methods to decrease or compensate the intrinsic high losses of these structures have been proposed. Here we report our work on design and experimental realization of hybrid plasmonic waveguides and devices that allow for considerable decrease of losses, still keeping sub-wavelength light confinement.

The characteristics of long-range hybrid plasmonic modes guided by multilayer metal–dielectric planar waveguides are investigated at the telecom wavelength. These multilayer structures are formed by sandwiching thin metallic stripes into horizontal silicon slot-like waveguides. Comprehensive numerical studies regarding the geometric parameters’ effects on the modal properties reveal that, by properly choosing the dimensions of the metal stripe and the low-index gaps between the stripe and the silicon layers, the symmetric hybrid modes supported by the structures could feature simultaneously ultra-long propagation distance (several centimeters) and subwavelength mode size. Consideration of possible fabrication imperfections shows that the optical performances of the waveguides are quite robust and highly tolerant to these errors. The presented multilayer plasmonic structures greatly extend the capabilities of conventional long-range surface plasmon polariton waveguides by successfully confining light into a subwavelength scale while maintaining the key advantage of enabling ultra-low-loss propagation, which could facilitate potential applications in ultra-long-range plasmon waveguiding and realizations of compact, high-performance photonic components, as well as building optically integrated circuits with complex functionalities.

Vertical directional coupling between a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) plasmonic waveguide and a conventional dielectric waveguide is investigated. The coupling length, extinction ratio, insertion loss and coupling efficiency of the hybrid coupler are analyzed. As an example, when the separation between the two waveguides is 250 nm, a maximum coupling efficiency of 73%, an insertion loss of -1.4 dB and an extinction ratio of 16 dB can be achieved at a coupling length of 4.5 microm at 1.55 microm wavelength. A particular feature of this hybrid coupler is that it is highly tolerant to the structural parameters of the plasmonic waveguide and the misalignment between the two waveguides. The performance of this hybrid coupler as a TM polarizer is also analyzed and a maximum extinction ratio of 44 dB and an insertion loss of -0.18 dB can be obtained. The application of this hybrid coupler includes the signal routing between plasmonic waveguides and dielectric waveguides in photonic integrated circuits and the polarization control between TE and TM modes. In addition, it provides an approach for efficiently exciting MIM plasmonic modes with conventional dielectric modes.

In this paper, we propose a general boundary integral equation (BIE) approach for solving both exterior (e.g., scattering) and interior (e.g., guided wave propagation) problems involving general plasmonic waveguiding structures with arbitrary cross-sectional geometries and with a continuous translational symmetry in the direction of wave propagation. Contrary to the field-based approach which deals with the electric and magnetic fields, we employ a potential-based formalism instead, involving vector and scalar potentials, and match them at the media interfaces. The proposed approach can handle not only conventional plasmonic waveguides on the order of a few hundred nanometers but also those whose critical sizes are a few nanometers and in which the nonlocal hydrodynamic effects need to be accounted for. The BIEs describing the interaction of light with the plasmonic waveguide are solved by the method of moments (MoM) algorithm. Two illustrative examples, the first one of which deals with the scattering problem, while the second computes the dispersion diagram of a plasmonic cylinder, are considered for both local and nonlocal cases. An excellent agreement is observed between the numerical and theoretical results, with the latter being derived from the generalized Mie theory.

Gain enhancement in a V-shaped plasmonic slot waveguide for efficient loss compensation at the subwavelength scale

In this study, we numerically simulate novel planar plasmonic waveguides and notch filters with excellent guiding and rejection of terahertz (THz) waves with super subwavelength confinement. Our design is based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons-surface plasmon polaritons with a frequency that has been tuned using patterned conductive surfaces. We find that by using patterns of periodically arranged spiral-shaped units, the dispersion characteristics can be engineered at will by tuning the parameters of the spirals. We find that the resulting plasmonic waveguides have much lower asymptotic frequencies and much tighter terahertz field confinement when compared with conventional rectangular-grooved plasmonic waveguides. We show it is possible to design a structure with lateral dimensions that are only 25% the size of the conventional spoof surface plasmon polariton waveguides but with the same asymptotic frequency. Finally, we combined this architecture with broadband couplers to design an ultrawideband low-pass filter with sharp roll-off (cut-off frequency at 1.29 THz) and low insertion loss (<;3 dB). Furthermore, by introducing double ring resonators based on spiral-shaped units, a planar plasmonic notch filter with rejection of more than 17 dB between 0.97 and 0.99 THz is demonstrated. Finally, the proposed waveguides and notch filters may have great potential applications in the promising terahertz integrated plasmonic circuits and systems.

For development of on-chip photonic circuits, a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible hybrid plasmonic slot waveguide is proposed. The characteristics of its guided hybrid modes at a wavelength of 1.55 μm are investigated by the finite-element method. The combination of a Si gate and metallic features of a CMOS electronic device provides both subwavelength light confinement and long propagation length with high power intensity. The characteristics of the guided hybrid mode are improved by optimizing the configurations of the Si core. The proposed hybrid plasmonic slot waveguide is compatible not only with the silicon electronics fabrication processes but also with the metallic features of CMOS electronic devices.

Plasmonic waveguides are promising in nonlinear optical applications because of their subwavelength field confinement, which can strongly enhance light-matter interactions and greatly reduce the device footprint. We investigate the Kerr nonlinear characteristics of two typical plasmonic waveguides and compare their relative merits to a conventional all-dielectric silicon slot waveguide. This work provides useful guidance on designing ultra-compact nonlinear optical devices.

Bringing photonics and electronics into a common integration platform can unleash unprecedented performance capabilities in data communication and sensing applications. Plasmonics were proposed as the key technology that can merge ultra-fast photonics and low-dimension electronics due to their metallic nature and their unique ability to guide light at subwavelength scales. However, inherent high losses of plasmonics impede their practical deployment in PICs. To ameliorate this limitation, selective integration of individual nano-plasmonic devices on low-loss photonic platforms is considered, allowing for enhanced chip-scale functionalities with realistic power budgets. Likewise, highly-efficient and fabrication-tolerant optical interfaces for co-planar plasmonic and photonic waveguides become essential, bridging these two "worlds" and ease combined high-volume manufacturing. In this work, a TM-mode butt-coupled interface for stoichiometric Si <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sub> N <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">4</sub> and gold-based thin-film plasmonic waveguides is proposed aiming to be utilized for bio-sensing applications. Following a systematic design process, this new configuration has been analyzed through 3D FDTD numerical simulations demonstrating interface insertion losses of 2dB at the wavelength of 1550 nm, with increased fabrication tolerance compared to silicon based waveguide alternatives.

Metallic nanostructures are able to interact with an incident electromagnetic field at subwavelength scales by plasmon resonance which involves the collective oscillation of conduction electrons localized at their surfaces. Among several possible applications of this phenomenon, the theoretical prediction is that optical circuits connecting multiple plasmonic elements will surpass classical electronic circuits at nanoscale because of their much faster light-based information processing. However, the placement and coupling of metallic elements smaller than optical wavelengths currently remain a formidable challenge by top-down manipulations. Here, we show that organic supramolecular triarylamine nanowires of ≈1 nm in diameter are able to act as plasmonic waveguides. Their self-assembly into plasmonic interconnects between arrays of gold nanoparticles leads to the bottom-up construction of basic optical nanocircuits. When the resonance modes of these metallic nanoparticles are coupled through the organic nanowires, the optical conductivity of the plasmonic layer dramatically increases from 259 to 4271 Ω(-1)·cm(-1). We explain this effect by the coupling of a hot electron/hole pair in the nanoparticle antenna with the half-filled polaronic band of the organic nanowire. We also demonstrate that the whole hybrid system can be described by using the abstraction of the lumped circuit theory, with a far field optical response which depends on the number of interconnects. Overall, our supramolecular bottom-up approach opens the possibility to implement processable, soft, and low cost organic plasmonic interconnects into a large number of applications going from sensing to metamaterials and information technologies.

We theoretically studied a nonlinear optical process in a hybrid plasmonic waveguide composed of a nonlinear dielectric waveguide and a metal film with a separation of a thin air gap. Owing to the hybridization effect of guided mode and surface plasmon polariton mode, this particular waveguide is able to confine the optical-field in a deep subwavelength scale together with low propagation loss. Based on this, efficient second-harmonic generations (SHG) were revealed at the fundamental wavelength of λ=1.55 μm with good field confinement. The SHG efficiency, as well as the coupling coefficient and mode area, were analyzed and discussed in detail with respect to the structural parameters.

Based on the metallic-dielectric high contrast gratings, we proposed two new different schemes to achieve the unidirectional coupling of incident free-space light into the plasmonic waveguides. Using the cascaded metal-air subgratings (structure 1) or metallic-dielectric subwavelength periodic gratings (structure 2), the ultra-broadband and wideangular SPPs excitation could be both achieved. The operation principle and performance of the structures are analyzed and discussed, respectively.

Plasmonic chemical and biological sensors offer significant advantages such as really compact sizes and extremely high sensitivity. Biosensors based on plasmonic waveguides and resonators are some of the most attractive candidates for mobile and wearable devices. However, high losses in the metal and complicated schemes for practical implementation make it challenging to find the optimal configuration of a compact plasmon biosensor. Here, we propose a novel plasmonic refractive index sensor based on a metal strip waveguide placed under a waveguide-based racetrack ring resonator made of the same metal. This scheme guarantees effective coupling between the waveguide and resonator and low loss light transmittance through the long-range waveguide. The proposed device can be easily fabricated (e.g., using optical lithography) and integrated with materials like graphene oxide for providing adsorption of the biomolecules on the sensitive part of the optical elements. To analyze the properties of the designed sensing system, we performed numerical simulations along with some analytical estimations. There is one other interesting general feature of this sensing scheme that is worth pointing out before looking at its details. The sensitivity of the considered device can be significantly increased by surrounding the resonator with media of slightly different refractive indices, which allows sensitivity to reach a value of more than 1 μm per refractive index unit.