Abstract
Future plasmonic integrated circuits with the capability of extremely high-speed data processing at optical frequencies will be dominated by the efficient optical emission (excitation) from (of) plasmonic waveguides. Towards this goal, plasmonic nanoantennas, currently a hot topic in the field of plasmonics, have potential to bridge the mismatch between the wave vector of free-space photonics and that of the guided plasmonics. To manipulate light at will, plasmonic nanoantenna arrays will definitely be more efficient than isolated nanoantennas. In this article, the concepts of microwave antenna arrays are applied to efficiently convert plasmonic waves in the plasmonic waveguides into free-space optical waves or vice versa. The proposed plasmonic nanoantenna array, with nanopatch antennas and a coupled wedge plasmon waveguide, can also act as an efficient spectrometer to project different wavelengths into different directions, or as a spatial filter to absorb a specific wavelength at a specified incident angle.
Highlights
We report a nanopatch array excited by a coupled wedge plasmon waveguide (CWPWG) for the optical integrated circuits (ICs) applications
Unlike for field confinement purposes in many previous literatures[2,3,4], the scenario of less confined fields is of benefit to nanopatch array design because the optical power will be easier to be coupled onto the nanopatch antennas
Except for the CWPWG, other plasmonic waveguides, e.g., nanowires[18], dielectric loaded plasmonic waveguide[9], and nanostrips[2], can be adopted for the nanopatch array design according to similar rules
Summary
Future plasmonic integrated circuits with the capability of extremely high-speed data processing at optical frequencies will be dominated by the efficient optical emission (excitation) from (of) plasmonic waveguides. Towards this goal, plasmonic nanoantennas, currently a hot topic in the field of plasmonics, have potential to bridge the mismatch between the wave vector of free-space photonics and that of the guided plasmonics. We report a nanopatch array excited by a coupled wedge plasmon waveguide (CWPWG) for the optical IC applications It is capable of highly directive emission and has potential applications for spectrometers or spatial colour filters.
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