An electrically-driven GaAs nanowire surface plasmon source

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Nanotechnology
• Optoelectronics
• Plasmonics

Background:

• Plasmonic waveguides are crucial for applications like biosensors and optical communication.
• Practical chip-scale integration is limited by the lack of efficient electrical excitation methods.
• Existing surface plasmon lasers and planar sources lack waveguide coupling and routing capabilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally demonstrate electrically driven light sources integrated with plasmonic nanostrip waveguides.
• To show the excitation, waveguiding, splitting, and routing of surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs).
• To overcome limitations in chip-scale plasmonic systems.

Main Methods:

• Integration of electrically driven GaAs nanowire light sources with plasmonic nanostrip waveguides (0.08λ² cross-section).
• Experimental demonstration of surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) excitation and waveguiding.
• Full-field electromagnetic simulations for analysis.
• Demonstration of SPP signal splitting and routing around 90° bends.

Main Results:

• Successful experimental demonstration of electrically driven SPP sources coupled to plasmonic waveguides.
• Validation of SPP excitation and waveguiding through experiments and simulations.
• Achieved splitting and routing of electrically generated SPP signals, including 90° bends.
• Demonstrated the functionality of integrated plasmon sources for routing plasmonic signals.

Conclusions:

• The integration of electrically driven nanowire light sources with plasmonic waveguides is a significant advancement.
• This work enables efficient on-chip generation and manipulation of SPPs.
• The developed technology greatly expands the applicability of plasmonic waveguides and routing elements in integrated photonic circuits.