Abstract
In this paper, novel ultra compact and ultra wide band couplers between silicon and plasmonic slot waveguides are analyzed, characterized, and fabricated. This novel coupling scheme is fabricated using silicon on insulator platform. An orthogonal junction configuration is designed to provide non-resonate wideband coupling from a 400 nm silicon waveguide to 50-nm wide air-filled plasmonic slot. The 1 μm wide full-width half-max coupling spectrum can theoretically reach high peak of 70% coupling to the plasmonic slot centered around the 1550 nm wavelength. This center wavelength can be controlled by varying the silicon waveguide width. Theoretical analysis is in good agreement with FDTD simulated results, and experimental results. The fabrication procedure is also presented and discussed.
Highlights
Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waveguides have attracted much attention in the last decade due to the wealth of applications enabled by their unique ability to guide light at subwavelength scales
Replacing the conventional metallic wires with high bandwidth optical interconnects would allow buses to operate at speeds much faster than those being used in the current state-of-the-art integrated circuits (ICs) [6]
It is clear from this figure that the response of the proposed coupling scheme is flat over the measured bandwidth, with more than 18% of the Si waveguide power coupled through the plasmonic slot waveguide (PSW)
Summary
Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) waveguides have attracted much attention in the last decade due to the wealth of applications enabled by their unique ability to guide light at subwavelength scales. If we can confine light into small cross-sectional dimensions on the order of tens of nanometers, while limiting the loss to allow for sufficient signal propagation lengths between these local modules, the optical network can replace metallic interconnects at all levels of an IC chip This system would allow transistors to operate at their peak performances. The plasmonic slot waveguide (PSW) can be considered a three-dimensional variation of the MIM, where a deeply subwavelength slot is surrounded by the metallic side walls along the horizontal direction, and embedded in dielectric materials along the vertical dimension This specific PSW has been recently fabricated using different approaches depending on the targeted applications [9,10]. A prototype device based on a silicon on insulator (SOI) substrate is fabricated to provide good demonstration of this coupling platform This novel coupling scheme provides a suitable platform that can be employed in optical interconnects applications.
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