Efficient Experimental Design of a Long-Range Gapped Surface Plasmon Polariton Waveguide for Plasmonic Modulation Applications

Efficient Experimental Design of a Long-Range Gapped Surface Plasmon Polariton Waveguide for Plasmonic Modulation Applications

We propose straight and tapered insulator–metal–insulator-type surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waveguides with a gap (G-SPPWs). The optical characteristics of the G-SPPWs are experimentally evaluated at a wavelength of 1.55 μm due to optical communication gateway. Th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dong Hun Lee, Myung-Hyun Lee
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2019-01-01
Series:IEEE Photonics Journal
Subjects:
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs)
Plasmonics
Waveguides
Integrated optics devices
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8625489/
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Summary:We propose straight and tapered insulator&#x2013;metal&#x2013;insulator-type surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waveguides with a gap (G-SPPWs). The optical characteristics of the G-SPPWs are experimentally evaluated at a wavelength of 1.55 &#x03BC;m due to optical communication gateway. The parameters of the 20-nm-thick G-SPPWs were chosen based on our previous simulation results. The excited input SPPs propagate, jump over the gaps with low coupling losses, and propagate again, despite a 9-&#x03BC;m-long gap in the G-SPPWs. The coupling losses of the gap were experimentally determined to be less than 0.7 dB with various gap lengths up to 9 &#x03BC;m. The insertion losses of the straight G-SPPW with 8 <italic>&#x03BC;</italic>m &#x00D7; 2 <italic>&#x03BC;</italic>m (gap length &#x00D7; SPPW width) and the tapered G-SPPW with 8 <italic>&#x03BC;</italic>m &#x00D7; 2 <italic>&#x03BC;</italic>m (gap length &#x00D7; SPPW width) and a 6 <italic>&#x03BC;</italic>m &#x00D7; 3 <italic>&#x03BC;</italic>m (taper width &#x00D7; taper length) were determined to be &#x223C;1.03 and &#x223C;0.74 dB, respectively. The tapered structure increases the tunneling efficiency in the gap of the G-SPPW by reducing the insertion loss. In the 2.5-Gbps optical signal transmission experiment, the proposed G-SPPW exhibited excellent eye opening and transferred the carrier wave as well as the data signal. This device has potential as a new plasmonic modulation element offering control of a guided SPP through interaction with an applied force in the gap.
ISSN:1943-0655

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