Plasmonics: the next chip-scale technology

Efficiency of local surface plasmon polariton excitation on ridges

“…This provides a technology capable to replace electrical-circuit interconnections, which are strongly speed limited by the RC delay, 1 with plasmonic ones limited merely by the SPP frequency. 2,3 Moreover, plasmonics can bridge microscale photonics and nanoscale electronics. 2 Use of SPPs for nanosensing exploits surface plasmon resonances, which can be frequency shifted due to the presence of a substance being sensed as well as due to structure geometry.…”

Plasmonic Demultiplexer and Guiding

“…15 By combining those plasmonic devices together, it may be possible to develop integrated plasmonic circuit and provide next-generation information network with improved bandwidth and speed. 16 Plasmonic demultiplexers, which are key elements of plasmonic circuits for wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) systems, need to be developed, and a high resolution is necessary to achieve a narrow channel spacing in high capacity plasmonic networks. Some SPP dispersing elements have been demonstrated, such as the overlapping bull's eye structure, 17 metal-insulator-metal resonator 18 and SPP crystal structures for splitting SPPs of different wavelengths into different directions.…”

Micro-optics: a micro-tutorial

“…The concept of photonic crystal is well-established [60] , variations of which have been combined with micro-optical and micromechanical structures for fabrication of novel waveguides, fi lters or optical sensors. Plasmonics, which relies on the use and manipulation of surface plasmon polaritons [61] has allowed the realization of, for example, extremely small waveguides [62] and a plasmon-based laser, or spaser [63] ; plasmonic optical sensors are also taking advantage of micro-optics for the development of ultra-miniaturized, high-sensitivity molecular sensors. Finally, metamaterials are artifi cially structured ' materials ' with customizable dielectric properties, including exotic effects such as the negative refractive index [64] ; metamaterials are excellent examples of nano-optical structures whose applications are only beginning to be realized.…”