Metallic-nanowire-loaded silicon-on-insulator structures: a route to low-loss plasmon waveguiding on the nanoscale

The simultaneous realization of nanoscale field localization and low transmission loss remains one of the major challenges in nanophotonics. Metal nanowire waveguides can fulfill this goal to a certain extent by confining light within subwavelength space, yet their optical performances are still restricted by the tradeoff between confinement and loss, which results in quite limited propagation distances when their mode sizes are reduced down to the nanometer scale. Here we introduce a class of low-loss guiding schemes by integrating silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguides with plasmon nanowire structures. The closely spaced silicon and metal configurations allow efficient light squeezing within the nanometer, low-index silica gaps between them, enabling deep-subwavelength light transmission with low modal attenuation. Optimizations of key structural parameters unravel the wide-range existence of the high-performance hybrid nanowire plasmon mode, which demonstrates improved guiding properties compared to the conventional hybrid and nanowire plasmon polaritons. The excitation strategy of the guided mode and the feasibility of the waveguide for compact photonic integration as well as active components are also discussed to lay the foundation for its practical implementation. The remarkable properties of these metallic-nanowire-loaded SOI waveguides potentially lend themselves to the implementation of high performance nanophotonic components, and open up promising opportunities for a variety of intriguing applications on the nanoscale.