Hybrid plasmon/dielectric waveguide for integrated silicon-on-insulator optical elements

Abstract

VLSI compatible optical waveguides on silicon are currently of particular interest in order to integrate optical elements onto silicon chips, and for possible replacements of electrical cross-chip/inter-core interconnects. Here we present simulation and experimental verification of a hybrid plasmon/dielectric, single-mode, single-polarization waveguide for silicon-on-insulator wafers. Its fabrication is compatible with VLSI processing techniques, and it possesses desirable properties such as the absence of birefringence and low sensitivity to surface roughness and metallic losses. The waveguide structure naturally forms an MOS capacitor, possibly useful for active device integration. Simulations predict very long propagation lengths of millimeter scale with micron scale confinement, or sub-micron scale confinement with propagation lengths still in excess of 100 microns. The waveguide may be tuned continuously between these states using standard VLSI processing. Extremely long propagation lengths have been simulated: one configuration presented here has a simulated propagation length of 34 cm.

Compact low loss and broadband hybrid plasmonic directional coupler

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An Efficient Numerical Full-Vectorial Mode Solver Based on Fourier Series Expansion Method

“…Equations (28)- (33) lead to the following matrix equations: On the other hand, boundary conditions for the continuities of the electric field components at interfaces require…”

Hybrid plasmonic waveguide incorporating an additional semiconductor stripe for enhanced optical confinement in the gap region

“…By squeezing the mode field inside the nanometer-size low-index-dielectric-filled gap between the semiconductor and the metal structures, these hybrid devices are able to allow efficient light transmission with simultaneously ultra-low propagation loss and strong optical confinement far beyond the diffraction limit [18,19]. Their superior optical properties have enabled highly efficient laser action with mode sizes reaching the deep-sub-wavelength scale [20][21][22][23], and also facilitated the operation of ultra-compact passive plasmonic devices with complex functionalities [24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34], as well as a number of other useful applications [35][36][37]. These studies related to hybrid plasmonic structures and components will lay important groundwork for the development of next-generation integrated photonic devices and circuits.…”