LiNbO3 waveguide with embedded Ag nanowire and 3L MoS2 for strong light confinement and ultra-long propagation length in the visible spectral range.

Abstract

A vertical slot LiNbO3 waveguide with an Ag nanowire and 3L MoS2 embedded in the low-refractive index slot region is proposed for the purpose of improving light confinement. We find that the proposed waveguide has a novel dielectric based plasmonic mode, where local light field is enhanced by the Ag nanowire. The mode exhibits an extremely large figure of merit (FoM) of 6.5×106, one order of magnitude larger than that the largest FoM of any plasmonic waveguide reported in the literature to date. The waveguide also has an extremely long propagation length of 84 cm in the visible wavelength at 680 nm. Furthermore, the waveguide has a low sub-micro bending loss and can be directly connected to all-dielectric waveguides with an extremely low coupling loss. The proposed vertical slot LiNbO3 waveguide is a promising candidate for the realization of ultrahigh integration density tunable circuits in the visible spectral range.