Nanowaveguides and couplers based on hybrid plasmonic modes

Experimental demonstration of silicon nanowires based hybrid plasmonic waveguides and couplers with subwavelength mode confinement at the near infrared wavelength lambda = 980 nm are presented. By measuring the radiating light from the discontinuities in a nanowire, the estimated propagation length of the hybrid plasmonic waveguide is about 30 mu m (corresponding to a propagation loss of similar to 0.14 dB/mu m). For the coupler, the experimental results show that the hybrid plasmonic modes can be efficiently coupled between two overlapping nanowires only with a 1.9 mu m long coupling length. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3524515]