Polarization controlled directional excitation of Bloch surface waves (Conference Presentation)

Abstract

Bloch surface waves (BSWs) are electromagnetic surface waves which can be excited at the interface between periodic dielectric multilayer and a surrounding medium. In comparison with surface plasmon polaritons these surface states perform high quality factor due to low loss characteristics of dielectric materials and can be exited both by TE and TM polarized light. A platform consisting of periodic stacks of alternative SiO2 and Si3N4 layers is designed and fabricated to work at the wavelength of 1.55 µm. The platform has an application in sensing and in integrated optics domain. A standard way of BSW excitation is coupling via Kretschmann configuration, but in this work we investigate a grating coupling of BSWs. Grating parameters are analytically and numerically optimized by RCWA and FDTD methods in order to obtain the best coupling conditions. The light is launched orthogonally to the surface of the photonic crystal and the grating. Due to a special grating configuration we demonstrate directionality of the BSW propagation depending on polarization of the incident light. The structure was experimentally realized on the surface of the photonic crystal by FIB milling. Experimental results are in a good agreement with a theory. The investigated configuration can be successfully used as a BSW launcher in on-chip all-optical integrated systems and work as a surface wave switch or modulator.