Nanoscale Optical Directional Coupler

Abstract

Ultracompact optical directional coupler is one of the key elements for nanoscale optical networks and highly integrated optical circuits. Although the transverse size has been reduced down to subwavelength by exploiting plasmonic waveguides, the longitudinal size has remained yet on the micrometer-scale, which seems to be a fundamental limitation by the conventional configuration based on cross-talk coupling between two neighboring waveguides. We have proposed a novel conception of optical directional coupler based on loss-overcompensated resonant coupling between two plasmonic waveguides via an in-between gain-assisted nanocavity. The loss-overcompensated state can be achieved by adjusting pumping rate in the nanocavity. The validity of the proposed conception is confirmed by numerical simulations of a physical model with the deep-subwavelength planar footprint of 300 nm × 300 nm, THz bandwidth, and an exceptionally low energy consumption on the order of 0.1 fJ per signal pulse. To our knowledge, it is the first proposed ultrafast nanoscale four-port directional coupler.