Nanoplasmonic directional couplers and MachZehnder interferometers
Rami A. Wahsheh, Zhaolin Lu
* , Mustafa A.G. Abushagur Microsystems Engineering, Kate Gleason College of Engineering, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY 14623, USA a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 28 July 2009 Received in revised form 24 August 2009 Accepted 24 August 2009 PACS: 42.79.Fm 42.79.Gn Keywords: Integrated optics devices Waveguides Surface plasmons a b s t r a c t We present a novel design and analysis of two nano-scale plasmonic devices: a directional coupler and a MachZehnder interferometer. The designs of the two devices are based on our recent work on the air-gap coupler that resulted in high coupling efciency between a dielectric waveguide and a plasmonic waveguide. The two devices are embedded between two dielectric waveguides and operate at optical telecom wavelengths. The overall efciency was 37% for a 22 directional coupler switch and above 50% for the proposed designs for a MachZehnder Interferometer. The efciency in the proposed devices can be increased using broader plasmonic waveguides. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) occurs at the interface between metal and dielectric material due to the interaction between the free surface electrons with the incident photons [13]. Thus, light can be conned in ultra small dimensions. To conne light further in the dielectric region, the dielectric region is put between two metals. In this conguration, the decaying SPP mode at each dielectricmetal interface interacts with the other, creating a conned light in the dielectric region. The dielectric width can be far below the diffraction limit because as the dielec- tric width decreases the effective refractive index increases. Reducing the width of the dielectric region improves the mode connement and decreases the propagation length [4,5]. The propagation length is decreased because as the mode conne- ment increases, the interaction with metal increases and conse- quently the losses increase. Several different optical circuit elements and devices such as directional couplers [68] and MachZehnder interferometers (MZIs) [8,9] have been proposed because they are considered as the platform for the optical sensors. To the best of our knowledge none of the proposed directional couplers and MZIs in the litera- ture has dealt with the coupling from a dielectric waveguide into a plasmonic waveguide and back into the dielectric waveguide, which is taken into consideration in our work. It is necessary to use dielectric waveguides to connect the plasmonic devices to the light source and detector so that the propagation losses due to the metallic interaction are dramatically reduced. The size of the directional coupler depends on the separation distance between the two adjacent waveguides, widths of the waveguides, the refractive index of the waveguides, the refractive index of metal, and the operating wavelength. Zia et al. [4] found that negligible cross talk between two adjacent metaldielectricmetal waveguides occurs when the separation distance between the two waveguides is greater than 150 nm. Traditional dielectric direc- tional couplers are used as splitters in which there is a 90 phase shift between the two split beams. A different phase behavior occurs in metaldielectricmetal directional couplers in which the phase difference between the two split beams is less than 90 [9]. Wang and his co-worker [9] attribute this phase behavior to the interaction of the eld with the complex refractive index of metal. Unlike traditional dielectric directional couplers, plas- monic directional couplers have wavelength coupling dependence because the real part of the complex refractive index of metal changes as wavelength changes [7]. In our previous work [10,11], we proposed a direct yet efcient short plasmonic air-gap coupler (AGC) to increase the coupling efciency between a silicon waveguide and a silverairsilver plas- monic waveguide. We also proposed a splitter that delivers light from a silicon waveguide into two plasmonic waveguides achiev- ing a coupling efciency of 45% for each branch. In this work, we present two potential applications of our proposed coupler and splitter: a directional coupler and a MachZehnder interferometer. 0030-4018/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2009.08.045 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 585 475 2106. E-mail addresses: raw7949@rit.edu (R.A. Wahsheh), zxleen@rit.edu (Z. Lu), maaeen@rit.edu (M.A.G. Abushagur). Optics Communications 282 (2009) 46224626 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Optics Communications j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ opt com To this end, we used the nite-difference time-domain method to simulate all the proposed two-dimensional structures. The mesh size was 1 nm which is small enough to capture the change of the eld at the interface between the dielectric waveguide and the plasmonic waveguide. The transverse magnetic mode was excited in the dielectric waveguide and the transmitted power was mea- sured close to the interface with the plasmonic waveguide. Per- fectly matched layers were used to attenuate the eld within its region. The metal losses were included in our simulations. The rel- ative permittivity of the silver at the free space wavelength k o = 1.55 lm was 103.7 + 8.1j. 2. Plasmonic directional coupler Fig. 1a shows the schematic of the proposed plasmonic direc- tional coupler. It consists of two air-gap slot waveguides (AGSWs), W 1 and W 2 . W 1 was kept connected to the air-gap coupler (AGC) while W 2 had a separation distance of 80 nm from the top of the AGC. We studied the effect of changing the separation distance be- tween the two AGSWs, D 3 , on the efciency into W 2 . Fig. 1b shows the coupling efciency as a function of the overlapped propagation length, L, between W 1 and W 2 for two cases when D 3 = 10 and 220 nm. As expected, as D 3 increases, the cross talk between the two AGSWs decreases and the coupling length increases. The cou- pling length, L c , is dened as the propagation length needed to completely transfer light from W 1 to W 2 . The attenuation of the coupled power as L increases is due to the metallic losses. Our sim- ulation results show that L c increased from 870 (Fig. 1c) to about 1700 nm (Fig. 1d) as D 3 increased from 10 to 20 nm, respectively. Also, our simulation results show that the cross talk between the two AGSWs is negligible when D 3 is larger than 150 nm. The cou- pling length at which the maximum value of the transferred power occurs is slightly off than that of the minimum value of the other waveguide. Zhao et al. [7] attributed the position offset to the interaction of the eld with the complex refractive index of metal. An efcient and compact directional coupler can be made when D 3 = 10 nm. The power is continuously coupled from one AGSW to another along the propagation direction (Fig. 1c). Total power transfer occurs when the propagation length is equal to about 870 nm. A 3 dB coupler (40% in each branch) can be made when the propagation length is equal to 453 nm. Fig. 2 shows a 22 directional coupler switch in which light propagates through port 1 and exits through port 4 when total cou- pling occurs. The spacing between the two input- (or output-) ports is 320 nm and that between the s-shaped bends is 380 nm. The spacing ensures no cross talk between the waveguides. The s-shaped bends did not start from the center of the AGC to reduce the size of the switch and the propagation losses. The trade-off is that 4% of the coupling efciency is lost at each interface [11]. The width of the two AGSWs is 40 nm, whereas the separation dis- tance between them within the coupling region is 10 nm. Fig. 2b shows the efciency into ports 3 and 4 as a function of the coupling Fig. 1. (a) Schematic of the directional coupler structure. (b) Coupling efciency as a function of the overlapped propagation length, L, between W 1 and W 2 at different values of D 3 . (c,d) Power density prole for D 3 = 10 and 20 nm, respectively. R.A. Wahsheh et al. / Optics Communications 282 (2009) 46224626 4623 length, L D . As L D increases the power is periodically transferred be- tween the two ports. The interaction length required to achieve to- tal power transfer is equal to 910 nm(see Fig. 2c). The excess loss is about 16 dB (coupling efciency inside port 4 is 37%), while the isolation is about 23 dB (cross talk in port 3). A 3 dB beam splitter can be achieved when L D is equal to about 440 nm. Fig. 2. (a) Schematic of the switch structure. (b) Coupled power into each port as a function of L D . (c) Power density prole for the proposed switch when L D = 910 nm. Fig. 3. (a, b) Schematic of the FabryPerot cavity structures with and without the AGC, respectively. (c) Efciency as a function of the AGSW length, L. 4624 R.A. Wahsheh et al. / Optics Communications 282 (2009) 46224626 3. Plasmonic MachZehnder interferometer Coupling light in and out of the plasmonic waveguide can be achieved by using one of the FabryPerot cavity structures as shown in Fig. 3a and b. One structure (Fig. 3a) consists of a 40 nm-wide AGSW embedded between two silicon waveguides. The other struc- ture (Fig. 3b) consists of a 40 nm-wide AGSWand two AGCs embed- ded between two silicon waveguides. The coupling efciency into the output silicon waveguide as a function of the AGSW length, L, for both structures is shown in Fig. 3c. Efciency decreases as L in- creases because of the propagation losses due to the metallic absorp- tion. The oscillation in the measured coupling efciency was dramatically reduced by using the two AGCs. Also, higher coupling efciency was achieved by using the two AGCs. Based on our recent work on a 3 dB splitter [10,11], we propose two designs for an MZI using silverairsilver geometry. The rst Fig. 4. (a) Schematic of the proposed silverairsilver MachZehnder interferometer. (b) Output power as a function of MachZehnder arm length, L. (c, d) Field distribution and power density prole for L = 600 nm, respectively. Fig. 5. Schematic of the proposed three-waveguide silverairsilver MachZehnder interferometer. (b) Power eld distribution. R.A. Wahsheh et al. / Optics Communications 282 (2009) 46224626 4625 design is achieved by connecting two splitters back to back, as shown in Fig. 4a. In this conguration, the input light is equally split into each AGSW and then recombined at the output silicon waveguide. The two AGSWs form the MachZehnder propagation arms. The separation between the AGSWs is 220 nm. The output power was measured at the output silicon waveguide as a function of the MachZehnder arm length, L, (Fig. 4b). The oscillation in the measured coupling efciency is due to the FabryPerot cavity re- sponse that is caused by the reection of the plasmon mode from each dielectric waveguide. Efciency decreases as L increases be- cause of the propagation losses due to the metallic absorption. Fig. 4c and d show the electric eld intensity and the power density prole for the proposed structure. It is clear that the input light is equally split into the two AGSWs arms and recombines at the out- put dielectric waveguide. A potential application of this structure is in integrated optical sensors [12], where the electromagnetic eld in the gap between the two AGSWs is strongly conned that can be easily disturbed by an external effect. We propose another MZI structure that consists of a splitter and a directional coupler (a three-waveguide coupler structure), as shown in Fig. 5a. The input light is equally split into the two AGSWs arms and recombines at the middle AGSWbefore it couples into the output dielectric waveguide. The eld is highly localized at the end of the middle MZI arm(Fig. 5b). The coupling efciency is about 53% when the interaction length is about 703 nm and the width of the metal between the three AGSW is 10 nm. The length of the MZI structure can slightly be reduced by placing the central AGSW between the two s-shaped plasmonic waveguides. 4. Conclusion We showed how a compact size plasmonic 22 directional cou- pler switch and a plasmonic MachZehnder interferometer (MZI) can be designed. 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