Hybrid photonic-plasmonic crystal nanocavity sensors

We have investigated a hybrid photonic-plasmonic crystal nanocavity consisting of a silicon grating nanowire adjacent to a metal surface with a gain gap between them. The hybrid plasmonic cavity modes are highly confined in the gap due to the strong coupling of the photonic crystal cavity modes and the surface plasmonic gap modes. Using finite-element method (FEM), guided modes of the hybrid plasmonic waveguide (WG) were numerically determined at a wavelength of 1550 nm. The modal characteristics such as WG confinement factors and modal losses of the fundamental hybrid plasmonic modes were obtained as a function of groove depth at various gap heights. Furthermore, the band structure of the hybrid crystal modes corresponding to a wide band gap of 17.8 THz is revealed. To enclose the optical energy effectively, a single defect was introduced into the hybrid crystal. At a deep subwavelength defect length as small as 270 nm, the resonant mode exhibits a high quality factor of 567 and an ultrasmall mode volume of 1.9 x 10(-3) (lambda/n(eff))(3) at the resonance wavelength of 1550 nm. Compared to conventional photonic crystal nanowire cavities in the absence of a metal surface, the factor Q/V-m is significantly enhanced by about 15 times. The designed hybrid photonic-plasmonic cavity sensors exhibit distinguished characteristics such as sensitivity of 443 nm/RIU and figure of merit of 129. The proposed nanocavities open new possibilities for various applications with strong light-matter interaction, such as biosensors and nanolasers.