Vertical coupling between gap plasmon waveguides

Abstract

This work examines vertical coupling between gap plasmon waveguides for use in high confinement power transfer and power splitting applications at 1.55 microm free space wavelength. The supermode interference method is used to obtain key coupler performance parameters such as coupling length, extinction ratio, net coupled output power, radiated power, and reflected power as a function of waveguide center-to-center spacing, core refractive index, and gap width. The initial power distribution among the two coupler supermodes is obtained via the mode matching method for a single input waveguide feed. Excellent agreement with three-dimensional finite difference time domain simulations is observed for the case of square 50 nm gaps with core refractive indices of 2.50 and a center-to-center spacing of 112 nm. Local maxima in the net coupled output power are found to coincide with local minima in the coupling length. An increase in the core refractive index from 1.00 to 2.5 increases the local maximum net coupled output power from 6.4% to 49% but decreases the extinction ratio from 12.7 to 6.94. A sweep of the width of the core from 25 to 100 nm increases the net coupled output power from 43.7% to 52.0%, but increases the coupling length from 1.58 to 3.19 ???m and decreases the extinction ratio from 7.39 to 6.57.