Long-range hybrid wedge plasmonic waveguide

Area of Science:

• Photonics and Nanophotonics
• Plasmonics
• Waveguide Technology

Background:

• Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) enable subwavelength light confinement but often suffer from high propagation losses.
• Existing hybrid plasmonic waveguides offer trade-offs between mode confinement and propagation length.
• Dielectric-plasmonic hybrid structures are crucial for advancing optical device performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and investigate a novel long-range hybrid wedge plasmonic (LRHWP) waveguide.
• To achieve simultaneous deep subwavelength mode confinement and low propagation loss.
• To evaluate the waveguide's performance and tolerance to fabrication imperfections.

Main Methods:

• Numerical design and simulation of a waveguide structure comprising dielectric nanowires and metal wedges.
• Analysis of mode coupling between dielectric nanowire modes and long-range surface plasmon polariton (SPP) modes.
• Systematic evaluation of fabrication tolerances on waveguide mode properties.

Main Results:

• The LRHWP waveguide demonstrates strong coupling, enabling deep subwavelength confinement and low propagation loss.
• Compared to previous designs, LRHWP offers smaller mode size with similar propagation length or longer propagation length with similar confinement.
• An optimized LRHWP waveguide shows a one-order improvement in the Figure of Merit and tolerance to fabrication errors.

Conclusions:

• The proposed LRHWP waveguide presents a significant advancement in plasmonic waveguide technology.
• This design offers superior performance in terms of mode confinement and propagation loss compared to existing structures.
• The demonstrated tolerance to fabrication imperfections makes the LRHWP waveguide a promising candidate for practical applications.