Integrated power divider/combiner at hybrid orthogonal junctions

Abstract

We propose an integrated power divider/combiner at the interface between silicon nanowire and plasmonic slot waveguide (PSW). The proposed configuration facilitates light access and manipulation in planar nano-plasmonic circuits. The light is incident from a standard silicon nanowire to be accessed by a nano-plasmonic circuit providing subwavelength confinement. The structure overcomes the losses associated with long distance light propagation in nanoplasmonic splitters as coupling and splitting are performed at the same interface with minimal losses. Two PSWs placed orthogonally to the silicon nanowire forming hybrid junctions are exploited for the power dividing/combining functionality. The power splitter has been analyzed using the finite difference time domain (FDTD) numerical method. The ultra-compact proposed device provides wide-band power splitting functionality. A splitting of 34.7%, over most of the wavelength spectrum from 0.8 μm – 2.5 μm, is demonstrated.