Abstract
We report on monitoring the mode power in dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides (DLSPPWs) by measuring the resistance of gold electrodes, supporting the DLSPPW mode propagation, with internal (on-chip) Wheatstone bridges. The investigated DLSPPW configuration consisted of 1-μm-thick and 10-μm-wide cycloaliphatic acrylate polymer ridges tapered laterally to a 1-μm-wide ridge placed on a 50-nm-thin and 4-um wide gold stripe, all supported by a ~1.7-µm-thick Cytop layer deposited on a Si wafer. The fabricated DLSPPW power monitors were characterized at telecom wavelengths, showing very high responsivities reaching up to ~6.4 μV/μW (for a bias voltage of 245 mV) and the operation bandwidth exceeding 40 kHz.
Highlights
The massive growth of telecom and data communication traffic in the last decade can be attributed to using optical fibers as the transmission medium which has already taken over the task of long-distance communications from electrical cables and which refines the connections between different parts of large electronic systems
We report on monitoring the mode power in dielectric-loaded surface plasmon polariton waveguides (DLSPPWs) by measuring the resistance of gold electrodes, supporting the DLSPPW mode propagation, with internal Wheatstone bridges
The investigated DLSPPW configuration consisted of 1-μm-thick and 10-μm-wide cycloaliphatic acrylate polymer ridges tapered laterally to a 1-μm-wide ridge placed on a 50-nm-thin and 4-um wide gold stripe, all supported by a ~1.7-μm-thick Cytop layer deposited on a Si wafer
Summary
The massive growth of telecom and data communication traffic in the last decade can be attributed to using optical fibers as the transmission medium which has already taken over the task of long-distance communications from electrical cables and which refines the connections between different parts of large electronic systems. Among many available switching technologies the thermo-optic switches [2] are very attractive due their small size, large scalability, and potentiality for integration with waveguide dense-wavelength division-multiplexing multiplexers Their optical performances, in terms of cross talk and insertion losses, are acceptable for many applications. On the contrary, using a material with a small thermal conductivity, a long switching time, but a low switching power per unit length can be achieved The reason for it is that metallic stripes acting as heaters are deposited on top or lateral of the waveguides next to the switching region, leading, to high polarizationdependent losses since the absorption of TE and TM modes by closely placed electrodes is very different. The inevitable propagation losses in plasmonic waveguides can be turned into a useful functionality by DLSPPW mode power monitoring realized via measuring variations in the resistance of metal stripes supporting DLSPPW ridges caused by heating due to the mode absorption [13, 14]
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