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Start of funding 01.07.2012

Silicon compatible plasmonic nanocircuitry with embedded subwavelength waveguides

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Surface plasmon polaritons are electromagnetic excitations, which are bound to the interface between a metal and a dielectric. They enable photonic waveguiding on a scale much smaller than the diffraction limit of light. This sub-wavelength confinement comes along with high losses. In contrast integrated optical circuitry made of silicon (SOI) enables almost lossless propagation, but on scales much larger than state-of-the-art integrated electronic components. Our new approach is based on the combination of both schemes. It facilitates subwavelength integration of plasmonic waveguides, and at the same time it allows for an adiabatic transition to dielectric components with considerably reduced losses. We combine plasmonic optical antennas with dielectric waveguides and use specialized measurement techniques to their investigation. All activities are carried out at the University of Erlangen, the Max-Planck-Institute for the Science of Light and at the Caltech and the Kavli Nanoscience Institute.

Final report:
We achieved and partially exceeded all primary goals of the BaCaTeC project. We jointly developed (fabrication at CALTECH, measurements at FAU) novel dielectric-embedded plasmonic nanocircuits with tight, subwavelength confinement (350 nm < λ₀ = 1550 nm), while maintaining low in-circuit loss. We also reduced insertion-loss with newly developed Yagi-Uda-nanoantennas, setting the current benchmark for the efficiency of waveguide-coupled optical antennas (60% power conversion out, max. 45% in). In these nanocircuits we demonstrated unprecedentedly compact, strongly dispersive (30 dB over λ₀ = 200 nm) directional couplers (Ref. 1).

Based on these circuits we developed a first active photonic functionality by implementing for the first time an electro-plasmonic modulator into the nanocircuit. This “plasMOStor” is based on the special properties of transparent conductive oxides (ITO). An applied voltage injects charge-carriers and causes a strong signal modulation of (2.71 dB/µm), while keeping device loss (~ 0.45 dB/µm) low enough to fulfil the basic device requirements for possible future cascadeable photonic nanocircuits (Ref. 2). With two publications on additionally developed supporting techniques for the characterization (Refs. 3 and 4) we published our main results in two articles in the well-recognized journal Nano Letters (impact factor 13.03) and 8 joint conference proceedings. The results were achieved with several mutual visits by A. Kriesch and S. Dobmann at CALTECH and S. P. Burgos and H. Lee at FAU.

Project-publications:
1. Kriesch, A.; Burgos, S. P.; Ploss, D.; Pfeifer, H.; Atwater, H. A.; Peschel, U., Nano Lett. 2013, 13 (9), 4539–45, doi: 10.1021/nl402580c.
2. Lee, H. W. H.; Papadakis, G. T. .; Burgos, S. P. .; Chander, K.; Kriesch, A.; Pala, R.; Peschel, U.; Atwater, H. A., Nano Lett. 2014, 14 (10), doi: 10.1021/nl502998z.
3. Ploss, D.; Kriesch, A.; Pfeifer, H.; Banzer, P.; Peschel, U., Opt. Express 2014, 22, 13744, doi: 10.1364/OE.22.013744.
4. Dobmann, S.; Kriesch, A.; Ploss, D.; Peschel, U., Adv. Opt. Mater. 2014, 2, doi: 10.1002/adom.201400237.