Triangular Shape Hybrid Metal-Insulator-Metal Plasmonic Waveguide for Low Propagation Loss at Deep Subwavelength

Abstract

The triangular shape based hybrid metal-insulator-metal plasmonic waveguide, to achieve the low propagation loss at deep-subwavelength, has been proposed, and analyzed for the optical properties of the fundamental mode, such as normalized effective mode area, propagation length, etc., at 1550 rm nm of working wavelength. Due to the triangular type of high-index regions, the light is primarily confined at its tip-points, i.e., within the low-index materials. This type of waveguide structure can essentially provide the remarkably low propagation loss at deep subwavelength. The optical performance of fundamental hybrid mode is analyzed, by altering the waveguide dimensions, including the angle of triangular-shape high-index layer. Further, the investigation of mode character helps to understand the mode behavior of the proposed waveguide. The simulation results have established that the propagation length of fundamental hybrid mode of the presented waveguide can be achieved as ∼ 279.7 μm, with the normalized effective mode area of ∼ 0.4842, at w= 200 nm, h si = 300 nm, h g =\10\nm and h m =\100\nm; however, with other waveguide dimensions, L p has been achieved as, > 700 μ m. Further, the analysis on coupling length (L c), between the two nearby and similar type of the proposed waveguides, have been accomplished, and L c > 2500\μ m has been attained for the waveguide separation, and width respectively of 800 nm, and 200 nm. Moreover, the phases of fabrication process, along with the tolerance issues in fabricating the tip-points of high-index regions, have been discussed for the proposed waveguide structure. The waveguide structure proposed in this work can be fundamentally effective for the proposal of various nano-photonic components, such as power splitter, directional coupler, etc. © 2002-2012 IEEE.