Extraordinary Optical Confinement in a Silicon Slot Waveguide with Metallic Gratings

We present a silicon slot waveguide with metallic gratings embedded on the silicon surface in the slot region. The dependence of the optical coupling between two silicon wires on the width of the metal gap and the slot size are studied in detail. The results show that the optical field in the slot region with metallic gratings is significantly enhanced compared with the traditional slot waveguide due to the surface plasmon polaritons coupling on metallic gratings. The extraordinary optical confinement is attributed to the low effective dielectric constant of metallic gratings. The effective dielectric constant decreases with the increasing wavelength, and reaches the minimum when the width of the metal gap is about 0.01 times the wavelength.

All-optical modulator based on a ferrofluid core metal cladding waveguide chip

We propose a novel optical intensity modulator based on the combination of a symmetrical metal cladding optical waveguide （SMCW） and ferrofluid, where the ferrofluid is sealed in the waveguide to act as a guiding layer. The light matter interaction in the ferrofluid film leads to the formation of a regular nanoparticle pattern, which changes the phase match condition of the ultrahigh order modes in return. When two lasers are incident on the same spot of the waveguide chip, experiments illustrate all-optical modulation of one laser beam by adjusting the intensity of the other laser. A possible theoretical explanation may be due to the optical trapping and Soret effect since the phenomenon is considerable only when the control laser is effectively coupled into the waveguide.

Independently tunable dual resonant dip refractive index sensor based on metal–insulator–metal waveguide with Q-shaped resonant cavity

A plasmonic resonator system consisting of a metal–insulator–metal waveguide and a Q-shaped resonant cavity is proposed in this paper. The transmission properties of surface plasmon polaritons in this structure are investigated by using the finite difference in time domain(FDTD) method, and the simulation results contain two resonant dips. The physical mechanism is studied by the multimode interference coupled mode theory(MICMT), and the theoretical results are in highly consistent with the simulation results. Furthermore, the parameters of the Q-shaped cavity can be controlled to adjust the two dips, respectively. The refractive index sensor proposed in this paper, with a sensitivity of 1578 nm/RIU and figure of merit(FOM) of 175, performs better than most of the similar structures. Therefore, the results of the study are instructive for the design and application of high sensitivity nanoscale refractive index sensors.

Angular-modulated spatial distribution of ultrahigh-order modes assisted by random scattering

In designing an optical waveguide with metallic films on a nanometer scale, the random scattering by the natural roughness of the thin film is always ignored. In this paper, we demonstrate that for the ultrahigh-order modes（UOMs） in the symmetric metal cladding waveguide, such a scattering leads to drastic variations in their spatial distribution at different incident angles. Owing to the high mode density of the UOMs, the random scattering induced coupling can be easily related to different modes with different propagation directions or wavenumbers. At small incident angles, the intra-mode coupling dominates, which results in a spatial distribution in the form of concentric rings. At large incident angles, the inter-mode coupling plays the most important role and leads to an array-like pattern. Experimental evidence via optically trapped nanoparticles support the theoretical hypothesis.

Simple Raman scattering sensor integrated with a metallic planar optical waveguide: effective modulation via minor structural adjustment

We report experimental realization of Raman spectra enhancement of copper phthalocyanine, using an on-chip metallic planar waveguide of the sub-millimeter scale. The oscillating ultrahigh order modes excited by the direct coupling method yield high optical intensity at resonance, which is different from the conventional strategy to create localized ＂hot spots.＂ The observed excitation efficiency of the Raman signal is significantly enhanced,owing to the high Q factor of the resonant cavity. Furthermore, effective modulation of the Raman intensity is available by adjusting the polymethyl methacrylate（PMMA） thickness in the guiding layer, i.e., by tuning the light–matter interaction length. A large modulation depth is verified through the fact that 10 times variation in the enhancement factor is observed in the experiment as the PMMA thickness varies from 7 to 23 μm.

Low cross-talk, deep subwavelength plasmonic metal/insulator/metal waveguide intersections with broadband tunability

We suggest a low cross-talk plasmonic cross-connector based on a metal/insulator/metal cavity and waveguides.We separately investigate the isolated cavity mode, the waveguide mode, and the combination of cavity and waveguide modes using a finite-different time-domain method. Due to resonant tunneling and the cutoff frequency of the odd waveguide mode, our proposed structure achieves a high throughput transmission ratio and eliminates cross-talk. Furthermore, the proposed structure has a broadband tunability of 587 nm, which can be achieved by modulating the cavity air gap thickness. This structure enables the miniaturization of photonic integrated circuits and sensing applications.

Analysis, design and simulation of MIM plasmonic filters with different geometries for technical parameters improvement

In this paper, four optical filter topologies based on metal–insulator–metal waveguides are proposed and the designed structures are investigated numerically using finite-difference timedomain method. Triangular-shaped adjunctions have been added to the filter structures to improve their transmission spectrum. These improved structures consist of air as the insulator and silver as the metal. The relative permittivity of metal has been described via the Drude,Drude–Lorentz, and Palik models. The first filter’s transmission spectrum shows an acceptable transmittance. In the second optimized filter, the transmission spectrum has been improved. The transmittance spectrum can be tuned through adjusting the edge of the triangle in these four optimized filters. As a result, the bandwidths of resonance spectra can be adjusted. The theory of such tapered structures will be investigated by the tapered transmission line and will be solved with the transfer matrix method. This method shows a better performance and higher transmission efficiency in comparison with the basic structures. On the other hand, the final filter has been chosen as the best one because of its hexagonal resonator. The main reason for having a better result is due to a longer interaction length in comparison with the circular resonator. This in turn creates much better energy coupling and results in higher transmission.