Hybrid plasmon/dielectric waveguide for integrated silicon-on-insulator optical elements

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Materials Science
• Electrical Engineering

Background:

• Integrating optical functionalities onto silicon chips is crucial for advanced computing and communication.
• Existing optical waveguides face challenges with miniaturization, fabrication compatibility, and signal loss.
• Electrical interconnects are limited by power consumption and speed at higher bandwidths.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel hybrid plasmon/dielectric optical waveguide for silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers.
• To demonstrate its compatibility with Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) processing.
• To achieve high performance in terms of propagation length and mode confinement.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing a hybrid plasmonic and dielectric waveguide design.
• Performing simulations to predict waveguide performance.
• Conducting experimental verification on silicon-on-insulator wafers.
• Investigating tunability through standard VLSI processing techniques.

Main Results:

• The waveguide is single-mode and single-polarization, with VLSI-compatible fabrication.
• It exhibits no birefringence and low sensitivity to surface roughness and metallic losses.
• Simulations predict millimeter-scale propagation with micron confinement, and >100 micron propagation with sub-micron confinement.
• One configuration shows a simulated propagation length of 34 cm.

Conclusions:

• The hybrid plasmon/dielectric waveguide is a promising candidate for on-chip optical interconnects.
• Its properties are suitable for integration into silicon photonics platforms.
• The inherent MOS capacitor structure opens possibilities for active device integration.