Plasmonic Waveguides - Yassin Chowdhury

Plasmonic Waveguides : Design and
Comparative Study
YASSIN CHOWDHURY
Master’s Degree Project

Stockholm, Sweden 2011
TRITA-ICT-EX-2011:139
Academic Year 2010-2011
Plasmonic Waveguides : Design

and Comparative Study
Yassin Chowdhury
Erasmus Mundus Master in Photonics

Master Thesis
Promotor: Prof. Min Qiu
Supervisor: Dr. Min Yan
Abstract
Although photonics offers an attractive solution to the speed limitation of electronics, reducing
the size of bulky photonic components is one of the major issues towards the implementation of
photonic integrated circuits. Plasmonic circuits, which tightly confine electromagnetic waves
at the metal-dielectric interface, can be a potential solution to this problem. Despite an
excessive amount of papers published in the field, there exist an inconsistency in terms of the
measure of plasmonic modal properties, especially their mode size. In this thesis work, several
representative plasmonic structures are studied and there modal characteristics are cross-
compared. Confinement has been calculated using several definitions in order to measure their
figure of merits consistently. In addition, we propose a plasmonic waveguide, which achieves
both deep sub-wavelength scale confinement and relatively long propagation. The waveguide
consists a metal nanowire on top of a high index dielectric strip which can be made of
Germanium. The hybridization of dielectric mode and cylinder plasmon polariton mode leads
to localization of the mode energy in the nanoscale gap. This structure outperforms existing
plasmonic waveguides in terms of figure of merit, which makes the waveguide particularly
useful in high density photonic integrated circuits. This thesis also investigates optical forces
due to the enhanced gradient field in plasmonic waveguides. Gradient forces and trapping
forces are calculated using Maxwell’s stress tensor for different hybrid waveguides, among
which the forces with the proposed waveguide structure are found to be the largest.
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Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would thank to Allah, for having made everything possible, by giving me the
strength, patience and courage to do this work.
This thesis would not have been accomplished without the guidance and support of several
individuals during the preparation and completion of the study. I would like to thank my su-
pervisor Dr. Min Yan for his abundant help, unselfishness, guidance and prolific suggestions.
Also my promoter Prof. Min Qiu had been the mentor behind the work and I thank him
for his encouragement. Thanks goes to all the members of the nanophotonics group and the
people of FMI in KTH for the fantastic memories.
I am indebted to the Erasmus Mundus program from the European Commission for the schol-
arship I obtained for the educational journey to KTH, Sweden.
My deep gratitude to Prof. Roel Baets for the support that I experienced in this adventure
in Photonics for the last two years. I also thank Mr. Bert Coryn, the programme officer of
Erasmus Mundus Photonics, for his continuous help and coordination during this program.
My fellow colleagues and friends in Erasmus Mundus - Mesut, Glenn, Joanne, Akin, Imran,
Eliyas, Ashim - you guys made this journey so wonderful.
I am deeply thankful to my parents and sisters for unremittingly supporting and encouraging
me. Although I am living thousand miles away from home, their prayer and love is always
with me.
.. and Iti, my loving wife, without your love, support and understanding, this work would not
be possible. I am so thankful that I have you with me, pushing and encouraging me, when I
was ready to give up.
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Principle of surface plasmon waveguiding 3

2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 The electromagnetic wave equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.3 Propagating and evanescent waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.4 Diffraction limit and low dimensional optical waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.4.1 Diffraction limit in 3D waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.4.2 Diffraction limit in 2D waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.5 Surface plasmon polariton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.5.1 Dispersion relation of SPP at a single interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.5.2 Different properties of surface plasmon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.6 Principle of 2D optical waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.6.1 Film SPP modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.6.2 Gap SPP modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3 Comparison of different plasmonic waveguides 23

3.1 Definition of confinement, propagation length and figure of merit . . . . . . . 24
3.1.1 Effective modal area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.1.2 Propagation length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1.3 Figure of merit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 Slot waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2.1 Simplified geometries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2.2 Characteristic of symmetric slot waveguide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.3 Metal strip waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.4 Metal cylinder waveguides (CyPPs) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.5 Dielectric-loaded SPP waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.6 Hybrid plasmonic waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.6.1 Conductor gap dielectric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.6.2 Hybrid plasmonic waveguide with a metal cap . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
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vi Contents
4 Waveguide design and analysis 47

4.1 Geometry and dispersion characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2 Confinement and propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2.1 Effect of gap width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2.2 Effect of nanowire diameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2.3 Effect of strip width . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.3 Power distribution profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.4 Analysis of hybrid mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.5 Coupling between two parallel waveguides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.6 Figure of merit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
5 Optical trapping 59
5.1 Force in hybrid Si nanowire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.1.1 Force with propagation loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.1.2 Nanoparticle trapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2 Force in hybrid Ge nanowire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2.1 Force with propagation loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.2.2 Nanoparticle trapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.3 Force in plasmonic metal nanowire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.4 Force in hybrid Ge strip novel waveguide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6 Conclusion 67
A Matlab script to calculate mode area A3 69

Chapter 1
Introduction
It is now routine to produce ultrafast transistors with sizes on the order of 50 nm. Scaling
blessed them in terms of power consumption and speed of operation but also brought delay
in terms of interconnections [1]. This delay imposes a fundamental limit in the data transfer
capacity that an electronic chip can support, which in turn drives us into the research for
increasing data transfer capacity along with a high integration density. Although optical
interconnects are capable of providing very high bandwidth in terms of data transmission,
their downscaling in size is impeded by the diffraction limit [2]. An ideal solution to this
problem would be to have a circuit which supports both optical signals and electric currents.
The fascinating field of nanophotonics addresses the challenge of manipulating light over di-
mensions on the order of or smaller than the wavelength. Surface plasmon (SP) based photonic
circuits are the most promising candidates for achieving high density photonic integration.
They offer the potential to have the capacity of photonics and the small dimension of elec-
tronics. Surface plasmon (SP) waves are collective oscillation of electrons, moving back and
forth near the surface of metal/dielectric [3]. When light comes to interact with the plasma
wave, coupling between them occurs and surface plasmon polaritons (SPP) are formed. The
decay lengths (skin depths) of SPP waves in the direction transverse to the interface, are
very small which make SPP a strong candidate to offer sub-wavelength mode confinement
and possibility to guide light in metallic nano-structures. Plasmonic circuits will bridge the
gap between photonics and electronics. They potentially serve as building blocks for various
optical components such as waveguides, couplers, switches etc.
So far there have been a lot of theoretical proposals and experimental demonstrations of
SPP waveguides. V-shaped grooves in metals [4] and wedge structures [5] are proposed
and experimentally demonstrated to achieve localized field enhancement. High degree of
confinement of the plasmonic circuits comes with the cost of high loss inherited due to the use
of metal. An array of nanoparticle resonators can be used to reduce ohmic losses [6]. Hybrid
waveguides are proposed to provide long propagation along with sub-wavelength confinement
[7]. There is also experimental demonstration of deep subwavelength scale nano laser using
1
2 Chapter 1. Introduction
capacitor-like energy storage of the hybrid mode [8].
Although there are lot of promising structures available, there is a lack of cross-comparison
among these waveguides in the literature. Also the trade-off between the propagation and
confinement is yet to be solved/improved. It is one of the objectives of this thesis to consis-
tently investigate the modal properties for different structures and compare them in terms of
merit.
In this thesis work a variety of plasmonic structures are analysed and their modal charac-
teristics have been cross-compared. Different definitions of confinement are studied and a
graphical way to measure the figure of merit has been demonstrated. A new waveguide based
on hybrid mode coupling has been proposed. The characteristics of the new design is thor-
oughly investigated in order to compare with the state-of-the-art waveguide sturctures in the
literature.
Full vectorial eigenmode solver of COMSOL has been used to calculate the effective indices of
the modes. At the extremities of the calculation region perfectly matched layers (PML) along
with scattering boundary condition is used to mimic open boundary. Convergence analyses
are also been conducted to verify the validity of the results.
An overview of the content of the chapters is given below,
Chapter 2 : Principles of plasmonic waveguides are studied and several important features of
SPP waves are reviewed.
Chapter 3 : Various plasmonic structures are theoretically investigated and several charac-
teristics parameters are calculated. Comparing structures using graphical figure of merit is
introduced.
Chapter 4 : A novel design is proposed and the characteristics of the guided mode are anal-
ysed.
Chapter 5 : Theory of optical force is introduced. Optical trapping forces for several plas-
monic structures are calculated including the proposed structure with air background.
Chapter 6 : Summary of the work is presented.
Chapter 2
Principle of surface plasmon

waveguiding
2.1 Introduction
In order to realize plasmonic or the subwavelength optical waveguides, we first need to un-
derstand surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Polaritons are considered as quasi-particles
resulting from strong exchange of energy between electromagnetic wave and excitation in a
material e.g. photon-electron coupling. When electromagnetic fields are coupled to the oscil-
lation of electron plasma of a conductor in a dielectric-conductor interface, electromagnetic
surface waves are excited and propagate along the interface. These surface waves are evanes-
cently confined in the perpendicular direction and are known as surface plasmon polariton
waves [9]. SPP waves in metallic waveguides and metal nanostructures open the possibility
to confine and guide optical waves on the nanometer scale [10].
Metal waveguides are also known as negative dielectric waveguides because the real part of
their permittivity is negative at optical frequencies (from visible to infra red). In recent
years, we have seen metamaterials having both negative permittivity and permeability [11],
which we will define as negative index (NI) materials. Optical waves can propagate through
dielectric (having, Re[] > 0 and Re[µ] > 0 ) and NI materials. However propagation of
optical wave is prohibited in materials having either negative or negative µ (ND and NP).
Thats why we need a new approach to guide waves in ND based waveguides. We can excite
self-sustaining SPP mode which will propagate along the boundary between ND and dielec-
tric. The categorization of different materials in terms of the signs of and µ is shown in
Figure 2.1. We will consider ’ND’ and ’metal’ both having same meaning and will use them
interchangeably.
Starting from the wave equation, this chapter introduces the concept of propagating and
evanescent waves, low dimensional optical waves, diffraction limit of conventional optics and
3
4 Chapter 2. Principle of surface plasmon waveguiding
Figure 2.1: Position of various materials in the − µ diagram in terms of both signs of and µ.
Propagation is prohibited in Negative Dielectric (ND) and Negative Permeability (NP)
materials (shaded areas).
different properties of SPPs. We will concentrate on the underlying physical phenomena

involved in surface Plasmon waveguides and analyze various 2D and 1D waveguide configu-
rations.
2.2 The electromagnetic wave equation
As SPPs are electromagnetic (EM) waves, in order to study propagating SPP modes we need
to apply Maxwell’s equations to the flat interface between a conductor and a dielectric. We
can start from a general form applicable for the guiding of any EM waves, the wave equation,
which can be used to determine spatial field profile and dispersion of propagating waves
eventually.
Maxwell’s equations for macroscopic electromagnetism [12]:
∂B
∇×E=− ,
∂t
∂D
∇ × H = Jext + , (2.1)
∂t
∇ · D = ρext ,
∇ · B = 0,
in which the charge density ρext and the current density J ext are the sources for the electric
field E and the magnetic field H. After combining the curl equations, EM waves propagating
5
in a nonmagnetic, isotropic, homogeneous medium, in the absence of external charge and

current densities, we can get,
∂2D
∇ × ∇ × E = −µ0 2 (2.2)
∂t
If the dielectric profile is invariant over distances in the order of single optical wavelength, we
can simplifies (2.2) to,
∂2E
∇2 E − =0 (2.3)
c2 ∂t2
After assuming harmonic time dependence E(r, t) = E(r)e−iωt of the electric field,
∇2 E + k02 E = 0 (2.4)
This is known by Helmholtz Equation where, k0 = ωc is the propagating wave vector in

vacuum. Now, let’s define the propagation geometry under the simplicity of one dimensional
problem as shown in Figure 2.2, where permittivity depends only on one spatial coordinate.
If the propagation direction is x in the Cartesian coordinate system, no variation along y
axis (in-plane) and z = 0 defines the interface, we can write = (z) and the propagating
wave can be described as E(x, y, z) = E(z)eiβx . The component of the wave vector along the
propagation direction, kx is known as the propagation constant β of the traveling wave. After
inserting this expression into (2.4),
∂2E
+ (k02 − β 2 )E = 0 (2.5)
∂z 2
A similar expression for the magnetic field H, can also be written [9]. Now we need to know
the explicit equations for different field components of E and H in order to determine the
spatial field profiles and dispersion relations. For TM modes where electric fields has non
zero components on the plane parallel to propagation (p polarized), only the Ex , Ez and Hy
components exist and the wave equation for TM mode is,
Figure 2.2: Planar waveguide geometry and propagation of waves in a cartesian coordinate system.
∂ 2 Hy
+ (k02 − β 2 )Hy = 0 (2.6a)
∂z 2
with electric field components,
1 ∂Hy
Ex = −i (2.6b)
ω0 ∂z
β
Ez = − Hy (2.6c)
ω0
For TE modes where electric field has the only nonzero components along perpendicular to
the propagation plane (s polarized) we have Hx , Hz and Ey being nonzero and the wave
equation for TE mode is,
∂ 2 Ey
+ (k02 − β 2 )Ey = 0 (2.7a)
∂z 2
with magnetic field components,
1 ∂Ey
Hx = i (2.7b)
ωµ0 ∂z
β
Hz = Ey (2.7c)
ωµ0
2.3 Propagating and evanescent waves
The SPP modes supported by metal nanostructures comprise exponentially decaying evanes-
cent fields and confined in a plane perpendicular to propagation direction. Therefore, it is
useful to review the properties of propagating and evanescent waves at the boundary between
different media [2, 13]. If we substitute plane-wave trial solution of electric field in the form
E(r, t) = E0 exp [i(k.r − ωt)] in Eq.(2.3) we can have the dispersion relation for the wave
vector k(ω) as,
ω2
|k(ω)|2 = k 2 = kx2 + ky2 + kz2 = (ω) = k02 (2.8)
c2
Considering 2D geometry and xz as propagating plane, no variation along y axis (ky = 0),
field equation for a plane wave propagating in the half-space z ≥ 0 becomes,
E(r, t) = E0 exp (−iωt) exp [i(kx x + kz z)] (2.9)
p
with kx is in (−∞, ∞), and kz = k02 − kx2
7
Figure 2.3: Example of the occurrence of evanescent waves, by (a) total internal reflection in dielectric
when the angle of incidence is more than some critical angle, (b) reflection for any angle
of incidence when the material is metal.
Now it is intuitive from the above relation that all waves with kx ≤ k0 are propagating or
homogenous wave and waves having kx > k0 are defined as evanescent waves [14].
If kx ≤ k0 , both the wave vector projections (kx and kz ) are real and propagation direction
of propagating waves is determined by this. They have wavelength λ = 2π/k = λ0 /n, where
λ0 = wavelength in vacuum and n2 = . For the case of evanescent waves propagating along
the x-axis, the spatial period of oscillation is λx = |k2πx | . As they are nearfield standing waves
and decays exponentially from the boundary along the z-axis, the decay length is given by
| kz |−1 = (kx2 −k02 )−0.5 The spatial periodicity of this kind of waves can go infinitely small (i.e.
spatial frequency extremely high) [14]. So we can realize their use in nanophotonic circuits
in general and interconnections in chip, in particular.
Evanescent waves can be formed in dielectric by total internal reflection of light as shown in
Figure 2.3. They exist because the tangential component of electric and magnetic field cant
be discontinuous (i.e. phase matching of the total electric fields on both sides of the interface)
at the boundary, as would be the case if they were not present. When the angle of incidence
√
θ > θcr (determined from d sin θcr = 1) of a wave propagating in the half space z < 0 in a
dielectric with d > 1 and strikes the interface z = 0 between dielectric and air with air = 1,
an evanescent wave will be excited in the half-space z ≥ 0, because kx > air k0 = k0 and to
fulfill the boundary condition,
√
q
2
kx = d k0 sin θ > k0 ⇒ E = E0 exp (i(kx x − ωt)) exp −zk0 d sin θ − 1 (2.10)
Evanescent waves can be excited at any angle of light incidence if one of the medium is metal.
For the case of a lossless metal with = m < 0, the wave number k is pure imaginary and
there are no propagating waves. Considering half-space z > 0 occupied by the metal, we can
find that any propagating wave from air to metal will form an evanescent wave in metal.
As for typical metals, | m | 1 [15], the field penetration (decay length) in metal |kz |−1 ≈
λ0 /(2π|m |0.5 ), is actually very small, typically in the scale of nanometers. We will show in
section 2.5 that contrary to propagating wave, evanescent waves can only be excited with TM
polarization in order to satisfy Coulomb’s law.
2.4 Diffraction limit and low dimensional optical waves
Nano-optics is different from conventional optics in the sense that, the exponentially decaying
spatial field plays an essential role in Nano-optics, on the other hand, in conventional optics
it is the extended mode which plays the dominating role. The dimension of an optical wave
is defined as the number of real components in wave vector k. In Cartesian coordinate
system if an optical wave have three real components in k then it is called a 3-dimensional
(3D) optical wave. Optical waves having one or more imaginary components of k are low
dimensional waves [16]. If the optical wave doesn’t have any real component of k then it is
defined as zero-dimensional (0D) optical wave. In this section we will model optical waves
with exponentially decaying field based on the concept of low dimensional optical waves.
2.4.1 Diffraction limit in 3D waves
For a dielectric optical waveguide it is the diffraction limit that will define the level of con-
finement that can be achieved during wave guiding. Considering a plane wave with angular
frequency ω in a medium with refractive index n, the dispersion relation of light will be
ω2
| k |2 = n2 (2.11)
c2
In Cartesian coordinate it becomes,
ω
kx2 + ky2 + kz2 = (nk0 )2 = µ( )2 (2.12)
c
Figure 2.4: Plot of equation (2.12) : wavenumber (k) surface [17] for different dimensional waves in
different materials, (a) 3D optical wave in dielectric, (b) 2D optical wave in dielectric,
(c) 2D optical wave in metal (ND), Ref. [18].
9
Since in 3D optical waves all the components of wave vector are real, the values of each
components kj are in the range −k ≤ kj ≤ k where j = x, y, z. So the spatial frequency
∆k = 2k = 2nk0 where k0 = 2πλ0 is the wavenumber in vacuum. From the uncertainty relation
of fourier transform, ∆r∆k ≥ π where ∆r = range of real space. Because of this constraint,
∆r has a minimum,
π λ0
∆r ≥ = (2.13)
∆k 4n
So the minimum size of a confined beam in all direction for a 3D optical wave,
λ0
∆rmin3D = (2.14)
4n
This is true for all waveguides irrespective of their structures, shapes and materials as long
as the optical wave is 3D (i.e. all components of wave vector k are real). Even for photonic
crystal or higher refractive index waveguide, the minimum size of the beam is limited by
diffraction to the order of vacuum wavelength (λ0 ).
2.4.2 Diffraction limit in 2D waves
From the study of propagating and evanescent waves in the previous section we saw that wave
vector along the perpendicular direction was imaginary for the case of evanescent waves.
So, 2D optical waves can be generated with the help of total internal reflection in dielec-
tric/dielectric interface and k components (kx , ky , ikz ) follows the relation,
ω
kx2 + ky2 − kz2 = µ( )2 , (2.15)
c
where, (> 0) is the permittivity of the medium where the evanescent wave has been generated.
If we plot this equation we get the surface of one-sheeted circular hyperboloid (1SCH) in 2D
k-space as shown in Figure 2.5(a). In the figure we considered two wavenumber surfaces on
each side of the interface and they must coincide due to the boundary condition.
For the case of evanescent wave at dielectric/metal interface using the same equation we can
plot the surface again using < 0 which is shown in Figure 2.5(b). Here, this is the surface of
two-sheeted circular hyperboloid (2SCH). For Figure 2.5(a) and (b) there is a closed sphere
since we still need 3D optical wave at one side of the interface, ∆k is limited by the radius
of the sphere. For 2.5(c) however, surface plasmon polariton do not need to be accompanied
with 3D wave. We have 2D optical wave at both interface → wavenumber surfaces are 2SCH
at metal side and 1SCH at dielectric side. Since, surface topology is open for both 1SCH and
2SCH ∆k can be increased indefinitely and ∆r → 0 when ∆k → ∞. However there is still a
limit even for the case of SPP, which we will discuss more in the next section.
Figure 2.5: Wavenumber (k) surface along with applied boundary condition for different materials
interfaces, (a) Total internal reflection at dielectric/dielectric, (b)Reflection at dielec-
tric/metal, (c) Surface plasmon polariton at dielectric/metal interface, [18]
2.5 Surface plasmon polariton
2.5.1 Dispersion relation of SPP at a single interface
Let us consider the most simple geometry sustaining SPP on a plane dielectric/metal interface
as shown in Figure 2.6. The non-absorbing half space (z > 0) consists of dielectric with
positive real dielectric constant d and the adjacent ND half space (z < 0) is described via a
dielectric function m (ω).
Figure 2.6: Domain and coordinate considered for SPP propagation at a single interface.
We will first consider TM field (Hy , Ex and Ez ) solutions. If we seek for bounded wave
confined to the interface, for domain z > 0 requires β 2 − k02 d > 0 i.e. evanescent decaying
away from the interface in the perpendicular z-direction. So the solution is [9],
Hy (z) = A exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.16a)

iAK1
Ex (z) = exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.16b)
ω0 d
11
Aβ
Ez (z) = − exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.16c)
ω0 d
Here, A is a constant and, q

K1 = β 2 − k02 d (2.17)
for z < 0 similarly,

Hy (z) = B exp(iβx) exp(K2 z) (2.18a)
iBK2
Ex (z) = − exp(iβx) exp(K2 z) (2.18b)
ω0 m
iBβ
Ez (z) = − exp(iβx) exp(K2 z) (2.18c)
ω0 m
Here B is another constant and, q

K2 = β 2 − k02 m (2.19)
Ki ≡ kz,i (i = 1, 2) is the component of the wave vector perpendicular to the interface in the
two different media. Note that, when the operating frequency is below the metal plasmon
frequency, m is negative, and argument of the square root will always fulfill the condition
β 2 −k02 m > 0. Now we have to apply the boundary condition in order to form a single surface
wave. From the continuity of displacement and electric field,
1 2
D⊥ = D⊥ (2.20a)
Ek1 = Ek2 (2.20b)

at the interface z = 0 between the D and ND media. From the first boundary condi-
tion(continuity of Dz ⇒ d Ez = m Ez ), we can obtain,
A=B (2.21)
and from second boundary condition (continuity of Ex ),
AK1 BK2
+ =0 (2.22)
d m
which can be written with the help of the other,
K1 K2
+ =0 (2.23)
d m
Using this along with the expression for K1 and K2 we arrive at the central result of this
section,
ω2 d m
r
β= 2 (2.24)
c d + m
This is the anticipated dispersion relation of SPP as it contains both ω and β. This expression
is valid for both complex and real valued m (ω) i.e. metal with and without attenuation. Eq.
(2.24) implies that the effective permittivity that SPP ’feels’ is dd+
m
m
, while the condition of
propagation is,
m < −d < 0 =⇒ |m | > d (2.25)
Before going deep into the properties of the dispersion relation, let’s analyse the possibility
of TE modes. Using (2.9), we can find the field components in the similar way we found for
TM. for z > 0
Ey (z) = A exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.26a)

iAK1
Hx (z) = − exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.26b)
ωµ0
Aβ
Hz (z) = exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.26c)
ωµ0
for z < 0
Ey (z) = B exp(iβx) exp(K2 z) (2.27a)

iBK2
Hx (z) = exp(iβx) exp(K2 z) (2.27b)
ωµ0
Bβ
Hz (z) = exp(iβx) exp(K2 z) (2.27c)
ωµ0
Again from the boundary condition (continuity of Ey and Hx ) at the interface, we may obtain,
A(K1 + K2 ) = 0 (2.28)
From the condition of the propagation of the surface modes Re[K1 ] > 0 and Re[K2 ] > 0. So
in order for the confinement to the surface, A = 0, also B = A = 0. Thus, TE polarization
cannot sustain any surface modes. Existance of surface plasmon polaritons only possible with
TM polarization [9].
2.5.2 Different properties of surface plasmon
Now lets take a closer look at the dispersion relation. If we assume the upper half domain is
air (d = 1) and the lower half domain is metal with negligible damping (ωτ 1, i.e. lossless)
described by the real Drude dielectric function, m = 1 − ωp2 /ω 2 . We can write the dispersion
equation in a more explicit way,

ω2 ω2
2
β c 2 ω 2 ω 2 − 1
2
= p ω2p (2.29)
ωp 2 2 −1
ωp
13
Figure 2.7: Dispersion relation of a typical SPP confined by a Drude metal with negligible damping
frequency and air (blue curve) and silica (red curve) interface. The dotted line is for
imaginary part of β. There are three regions in this graph - top left is (ω > ωp ) radiation
region, curve lying to the right of the respective light line are the bound mode region
and in between them where β is purely imaginary, is the frequency gap region.
Figure 2.7 shows the plot of (2.29) for lossless Drude metal with both an air (d = 1) and
a fused silica (d = 2.25) interface. In this graph the frequency ω and wave vector β are
normalized. The real and imaginary part of β is shown with continues and broken curves
respectively. In the frequency range ω < ωp , we have m < 0 which fulfills the assumption
β 2 −k02 m > 0. So β is real in the frequency region with ω/ωp between 0 and 0.71 for air-metal
and between 0 and 0.54 for silica-metal interface which ensures the wave is propagating. As
the SPP excitations always correspond to the curves lying below of respective light lines,
special phase-matching techniques are necessary for their excitation.
For small wave vectors corresponding to low frequencies, the SPP propagation constant β
coincides with the light line quite well. Since, in this regime the waves penetrate over many
wavelengths into the dielectric they are also known as Sommerfeld-Zenneck waves [19] and
are more photon like.
The upper limit of frequency for propagating mode is defined as the surface plasmon frequency
[2],
ωp
ωsp = √ (2.30)
1 + d
Here, d is 1 for air and 2.25 for silica. So, ωsp,1 = 0.7071ωp for air-metal and ωsp,2 = 0.5547ωp
for silica-metal interface. At frequency close to ωsp dispersion curve becomes more flat and
approaches β → ∞, if d + m (ω) = 0.
In Figure 2.7, a lossless metal with dielectric function given by Drude model has been assumed
with Im[m ] = 0. However in real metals m (ω) is complex and so is the propagation constant
Figure 2.8: Dispertion relation of SPP confined by a Silver/Air (blue curve) and Silver/Silica inter-
face (red curve) after considering damping. At surface plasmon frequency propagating
wave vector approaches a finite value in this case.
β, because of free electron and inter-band damping. Using the data for m (ω) of silver (Ag)
obtained by Johnson and Christy [15], we plot the dispersion relation of SPP at silver/silica
and silver/air interface in Figure 2.8. After we consider damping, the wave vector approach a
maximum, finite value when the frequency is close the surface plasmon frequency ωsp of the
system, instead of having something close to infinity for the case of undamped SPP. Also the
energy of traveling SPPs are attenuated by e−1 after some distance defined as the propagation
1
distance, Lp = 2Im[β] . This is because of the ohmic losses of the electron oscillation associated
with damping which limits both the propagation length and extent of decrease of λsp (= 2π/β).
Also in contrast to the case of ideal metal, the region between ωsp and ωp is not forbidden
any more, rather a quasibound leaky part of Re[β] exist in this regime [9].
A limited SPP propagation length is the main difficulty behind developing surface plasmon
based waveguide components for real life applications. For an example, we can estimate
the normalized propagation length at silver-air interface using permittivity of silver, m =
−129 + 3.3i at the telecom wavelength of 1.55 µm obtained from Johnson and Christy [15].
After putting the values in (2.24) we get Lp /λsp ≈ 796 which essentially represents the upper
limit of merit factor for the SPP-based resonators and interferometers.
Group Velocity
Using Eq.2.29 we can obtain the expression for group velocity as,
3 2 1
ω2 2 ω 2
dω 2 2
ωp
− 1 ωp2 − 1
vg = = 4 c (2.31)
dβ 2
2 ωωp − 2 ωω2 + 1
p
15
Figure 2.9: Group velocity as a function of normalized frequency in the unit of c. Blue curve for air
and red curve for silica as dielectric.
The plot of the group velocity in Figure 2.9 shows that as the frequency approaches ωsp it
decreases from c to zero. When vg → 0, the mode acquires electrostatic character, thus it
forms as surface plasmon.
Field property and enhancement
From the boundary condition, the tangential component of electric field (Ex ) is same both in
dielectric and metal(Ex0 ). Since the field components need to satisfy Coulomb’s law ∆.E =
0 both in upper and lower half spaces, we can explicitly relate the amplitudes of normal
(perpendicular to the interface) and tangential field components in the dielectric and metal
with the help of dispersion relation [Eq.(2.24)],
r r
−m 0 −d 0
Ez,d =i Ex and Ez,m = −i E (2.32)
d m x
Again, typically |m | d , resulting the domination of Ez (normal component) in the dielec-
tric and and Ex (tangential component) in the metal [14]. This reflects the hybrid nature of
SPPs combining the features of propagating EM wave (with transverse electric field, Ez ) in
dielectrics and free electron oscillations (with longitudinal electric field, Ex ) in metals. Also,
SPP damping due to ohmic losses in metal, is determined from the longitudinal electric field
components of the SPP in the metal.
An SPP is able to provide a much higher electric-to-magnetic field ratio than the ratio in free
space plane wave propagation. This property of SPP is known as field enhancement which
can lead to many nonlinearity related applications such as surface enhanced Raman scaterring
(SERs).
According to Eqs. 2.16c and 2.16a, the ratio between the field components is,
Ez β β m
= = Z0 = Z0 (using Eq. 2.24) (2.33)
Hy ω0 d k0 d d + m
If we assume the upper half-space is free space (d = 1) and lower domain is Drude metal
with m = 1 − ωp2 /ω 2 , then the field ratio as a function of frequency ω,
ω2
Ez ω2
−1
= ωp2 Z0 (2.34)
Hy 2 ω2 − 1
p
Relating to nonlinearity which depends on E 2 , we can define the enhancement factor as,
2
ω2

ωp2
−1
f = 2
 (2.35)
2 ωω2 − 1
p
Figure 2.10: Electric field intensity enhancement at a metal surface compared to in free space.
It is quite evident from the graph in Figure 2.10 that, it is desirable to operate at frequency
close to ωsp to order to achieve significant enhancement at the surface. The other component
tangential field Ex , also experiences similar enhancement effect.
Diffraction Limit of SPP
When the condition of SPP propagation is met (|m | > d ), one can see that β = kspp is larger
than nk0 ,
1
kspp = nk0 q > nk0 , (2.36)
1 − ||md ||
17
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 2.11: (a,b) Wave number (kSP P ) surface with respect to permittivity of metal in complex
plane (a) Air-Metal, (b) Silica-Metal (c) Width of SPP (solid red curve) with respect
to the relative permittivity of lossless metal for d = 1. Decay length in dielectric (D)
(dotted blue curve) and metal (ND)(dash-dotted green curve) are also shown.
√
where n is the refractive index of the dielectric (D) medium defined as n = d . As EM
field of SPP is confined as a 2D optical wave at the interface z = 0, we can find the width
of SPP by adding decay length (for the 1/e amplitude decrease) in both D and ND media.
From section (2.3) we know the decay length for evanescent wave is given by | kz(d,m) |−1 =
(kx2 − d,m k02 )−0.5 , where kz(d,m) is the wave vector in the perpendicular direction of D and
ND medium respectively.
p p
λ0 |m | − d |m | − d
δSP P = δd + δm = ( + ), (2.37)
2π d |m |
so that d δd = |m |δm . Since, m d , the field penetration in the metal is typically much
shorter than that in the dielectric.
To estimate the typical value of this width, we may use silver (Ag) as typical ND (m =
−129 + 3.3i) and Air or Silica as typical D. As a numerical example for silica(d = 2.25),
δd = 12.183 µm, δm = 0.2125 µm, kSP P = 1.5133 k0 and for air (d = 1) δd = 27.55 µm, δm =
0.2135 µm, kSP P = 1.0039 k0 at λ = 1550 nm and lossless values of ND are considered. If
we consider damping in metal as well, these values become, for silica, δd = 2.7776 µm, δm =
0.0215 µm, and for air δd = 2.7912 µm, δm = 0.0216 µm. In Figure 2.11(a) and 2.11(b) we
can see that kSP P diverges to infinity as |m | → d . So, its clearly evident that kSP P can
be increased by changing material parameter of D or ND. From Figure 2.11(c), the width of
SPP (δSP P ) can be decreased rapidly when m ≈ −d . The minimum size of a beam that can
be synthesized can be written as,
r
λSP P λ0 d + m
∆rmin2D (SP P ) = = (2.38)
4 4n m
√
where, n = d and because m < −d < 0 we can reach the conclusion that ∆rmin2D for
SPP is smaller than ∆rmin3D ,
s
λ0 |d | λ0
∆rmin2D (SP P ) = 1− < (2.39)
4n |m | 4n
In this way we can overcome the limit of diffraction of 3D optical waves by using SPP.
Nevertheless the minimum size is still limited to the order of subwavelength and depends on
material constants. It would be possible to make ∆rmin2D much smaller if we could somehow
increase k without changing material parameters. The coupled system of SPP is promising
to do that.
2.6 Principle of 2D optical waveguides
Let us move on from single interface to multiple interface systems. When we place two
metal/dielectric interfaces close together, the SPPs associated with individual interfaces start
to interact with each other, it is known as the coupled system of SPP. Considering the SPP
modes associated with two metal/dielectric interfaces, we can have either a thin metal layer
sandwiched between two layers of dielectrics or a thin dielectric layer surrounded by metals.
These structure are shown as metal film and metal gap in Figure - 2.12(a) and 2.12(b)
respectively.
2.6.1 Film SPP modes
Let us consider the SPP modes in the symmetric dielectric-metal-dielectric configuration as

shown in Figure-2.12(a). Here, a thin metal film with thickness h is embedded in the dielectric
which extends indefinitely on both side of the metal. Electromagnetic field is assumed in the
form ei(ωt−βx) while the propagation is along x direction. If the thickness is narrow enough
the two identical SPP mode at both interfaces will start to overlap with each other. The
propagation constant of individual symmetric and antisymmetric mode is different for small
thickness of the metal film [20,21]. Since transverse and longitudinal components complement
each other, symmetric component of one would be antisymmetric of the other configuration.
19
(a) (b)
Figure 2.12: Coordinate and geometry of 2D optical waveguides with double metal/dielectric inter-
face. The propagation is along x direction. (a) Metal film with dielectric on both side,
(b) Metal gap with dielectric between two metal slab.
Conventionally Ez -symmetric configuration is known as the symmetric SPP mode (exhibit

odd symmetry of Ex ). In this case Ex changes its sign at the mid-plane of the metal film and
experiences considerably less attenuation than the anti symmetric SPP mode. This symmetric
branch in the metal film, which has long propagation length even in lossy metals, is called the
long-range SPP (LR-SPP) and the anti-symmetric one (symmetric Ex ) is known as - the short
range SPP (SR-SPP) [21, 22]. After applying appropriate boundary condition, we obtain the
characteristic equations of LR-SPP for TM modes of 2D optical waves in metal film,
(d)
m kz q
tanh(kz(m) h/2) = − (m)
where, kz(m,d) = 2
kLR−SP − m,d k02 (2.40)
d kz
Although LR-SPP propagation constant cannot be expressed in an explicit form like SPPs,
for thin film with h → 0, we can approximate tanh x ≈ x and present kLR−SP in the following
way [14],
p
kLR−SP ≈ k0 d + (hk0 d /2)2 · [1 − (d /m )]2 (2.41)
For very thin film, LR-SPP propagation constant approaches the light line in the dielectric.
The main component Ex crosses zero at the middle of the metal and spreads out to dielectric
as shown in Figure 2.13(a). This reduces propagation loss due to damping and make LR-SPP
suitable for developing components for integrated photonics.
For SR-SPP, the main component in metal, Ex is nearly constant and component in dielectric,
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 2.13: Electric field distribution of gold film surrounded by air, film thickness h = 50 nm and
operating at λ0 = 775nm. Perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) has been applied to
the side boundaries and scattering boundary condition is applied on top and bottom
boundaries, while the propagation is at x direction. (a) Long Range Ex (changes sign
at the mid plane),(b) Long Range Ez (symmetric),(c) Short Range Ex (nearly constant
in the metal),(d) Short Range Ez (antisymmetric).
Ez is anti-symmetric as shown in Figure 2.13(c) and 2.13(d) respectively. Following the same
procedure the dispersion relation of SR-SPP is [14],
(m)
d kz q
tanh(kz(m) h/2) = − (d)
where, kz(m,d) = 2
kSR−SP − m,d k02 (2.42)
m kz
and simplification after assuming very thin films,

p
kSR−SP ≈ k0 d + [2d /(hk0 m )]2 (2.43)
When the film thickness h → 0, kSR−SP increases indefinitely : kSR−SP ≈ −(2d )/(hm ) →
∞, resulting both the SR-SPP wavelength and propagation length approaching zero. Due to
the high reflectivity at the film termination exhibiting by SR-SPP they are useful for designing
various plasmonic resonator structures [23].
21
Figure 2.14: Effective index and propagation length of long and short range SPP modes for a gold
film (m = −23.6 + 1.69i) surrounded by air at the excitation wavelength of 775nm
(adapted using Ref. [24] )
2.6.2 Gap SPP modes
Now lets consider the SPP modes in the metal-dielectric-metal configuration as shown in
Figure-2.12(b). The propagation mode in the metal gap split into two branches as the gap
decreases. The mode exhibiting odd symmetry of Ex (longitudinal component) survives for all
the values of h and is known as Gap SPP (G-SPP). Using boundary condition and symmetry
of field components, we can obtain the dispersion relation of G-SPP [14],
(m)
d kz q
tanh(kz(d) h/2) = − (d)
where, kz(m,d) = 2
kG−SP − m,d k02 (2.44)
m kz
Here, kG−SP is the propagation constant for the fundamental G-SPP mode and Ez has the
same sign across the gap (Figure 2.15(b)) while Ex (Figure 2.15(a)) has opposite sign.
Simplification after assuming sufficiently small gap, h → 0,
r q
kG−SP ≈ k0 0
d + 0.5(kG−SP /k0 )2 + 0
(kG−SP 0
/k0 )2 (d − m + 0.25(kG−SP /k0 )2 ) (2.45)
0 2d
where in the limit of very narrow gaps, Gap-SPP propagation constant, kG−SP = − hm
. The
fractional electric field energy concentrated in the gap region increases (damping decreases)
with the decrease of gap width when the gap is larger. After reaching the maximum it starts
to decrease with the field squeezing into the metal (damping increases). So the propagation
length can increase when h decrease from large values which corresponds to uncoupled SPPs.
This remarkable fact of G-SPP makes it possible to have modes with better confinement with
longer propagation length.
(a) (b)
Figure 2.15: Electric field distribution of two gold (Au) slab with an air gap of thickness h = 50nm,
(a) Gap-SPP Ex (odd symmetry/opposite sign across the gap), (b) Gap-SPP Ez (have
same sign across the gap).
Chapter 3
Comparison of different plasmonic

waveguides
The need of optical components capable of guiding and manipulating light in the sub-
wavelength scale has motivated research to plasmonics. In the past few years we have seen
a surge in sub-micron scale devices. Although their physical dimension is smaller than the
wavelength in vacuum, their confinement capability is rather limited by diffraction. Even
the promising structures like photonic crystals [25] and all-dielectric coupled silicon waveg-
uides [26] have fundamental limit in terms of diffraction. In the previous chapter we have
shown, it is possible to break this limit with the help of low dimensional evanescent waves. In
the visible regime the typical way to achieve sub-wavelength confinement involves the use of
surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). There are numerous waveguide architectures available in
the literature which utilizes the concept of SPP by storing part of light’s energy as electron
plasma oscillations at the interface between a metal (ND) and dielectric (D). The decay length
of the bound modes are typically much smaller than the wavelength. The SPP modes are
capable of squeezing light into sizes smaller than the diffraction limit but they have limited
propagation length because of intrinsic losses imposed by the use of metals.
From the literature we can find various plasmonic structures having extreme confinement such
as metallic nanowires [27], metallic nanoparticles [28], V-shaped grooves [4] and wedges [5].
These geometries are limited by the fact that they support highly confined mode only when
operating near the surface plasmon frequency (ωsp ). Also the propagation length is in the
range of few µm. Although there haven a lot of theoretical proposals and experimental
demonstration have been made, there is a lack of cross-comparison among these waveguides
in the literature. This is one of the goal of this thesis work to find a consistent way to
measure the modal properties. We will discuss, analyse and compare the performance of
several plasmonic waveguide structures namely, metal slot waveguide [29], metal stripe [30],
dielectric loaded SPP waveguide [31], metal cylinder (CyPP) [32], hybrid metal cap [33] and
hybrid dielectric cylinder structure [7]. We have thoroughly investigated the properties of the
modes supported by these structures and examine their merits in terms of confinement and
23
24 Chapter 3. Comparison of different plasmonic waveguides
propagation. We used a commercial package, the RF module of COMSOL Multiphysics for

simulations. The full vectorial finite element eigenmode solver is used to find modes of the
waveguide. At the extremities of the calculation region perfectly matched layers (PML) along
with scattering boundary condition is used to mimic open boundary. Convergence analyses
are also been conducted in terms of calculation region so that the effective indices do not vary
by more than 1%. Initial guess of index is always chosen to be higher than the highest index.
3.1 Definition of confinement, propagation length and figure

of merit
3.1.1 Effective modal area
The available measures of modal area are inherited from conventional waveguide theory. Since
the plasmonic waveguide can have sharp features which lead to rapid sub-wavelength level
variations in the shape of the mode, these measures are somewhat inconsistent if we apply
them for plasmonic mode. We need to find a definition which will consider the true extent
of the plasmonic field distribution in order to consistently quantify the mode confinement.
Out of many definitions found in the literature we will provide three different definitions and
compare them in our study of different waveguide structures.
The first definition A1 depends on the peak energy density and defined as [34],
1
Z
A1 = W (r)dA, (3.1)
Max{W (r)} A∞
Here, W (r) is the energy density,
1 d[ω(r)] 1
W (r) = Re{ }|E(r)|2 + µ0 |H(r)|2 . (3.2)
2 dω 2
A1 is directly related with the non-linear properties like spontaneous emission rate enhance-
ment or Purcell factor. Since A1 depends on the maximum energy density, this measure may
be misleading for waveguide with very sharp features. This is useful to quantify the local field
enhancement which is not necessarily accompanied by strong confinement of total energy [34].
The second definition A2 is a statistical measure requiring integration of energy density over
the cross section,
R 2
A∞ W (r)dA
A2 = R 2
(3.3)
A∞ W (r) dA
A2 is usually a better measure since it takes into consideration of the overall field. This
measure has firm foundation in optical fiber theory [35].However, it is potentially sensitive to
energy distribution.
25
The third definition A3 is made, aiming to gauge confinement irrespective of field distribution.
A3 is defined as the minimum area where exactly a portion η, of the mode’s total energy
resides. Since η is a generic constant, A3 is promised to be a geometry-independent measure
of confinement. We choose η = 0.5 in our study. So it will be the minimum area where half
of the mode’s total energy will reside. In order to calculate A3 , we need to solve the following
minimization problem [34],
Z
A3 = minf (r) f (r)dA,
A∞
Z (3.4)
so that, [f (r) − η]W (r)dA = 0
A∞
We can iteratively solve the problem by using,
f (r) = 0, if w(r) < W0 ,

(3.5)
f (r) = 1, if w(r) > W0 ,
where W0 is the contour containing η(= 0.5) of the mode’s total energy. We wrote a Matlab
script in order to do this calculation which can be found in the Appendix. This program is
capable of calculating A3 after receiving energy density data from COMSOL.
3.1.2 Propagation length
Although plasmonic structures provide extremely localized electromagnetic fields there is

an intrinsic cost involved in terms of the distance that the field can travel because of the
damping inside the metal. If the plasmonic mode propagate harmonically in z direction with
field variation, exp[i(βz − ωt)], the propagation distance is defined as the distance space that
a mode can travel before the energy density decaying to 1/e of its original value [34],
1
Lp = , (3.6)
2Im{β}
where, β is the propagation constant defined as β = nef f k0 and k0 is the wave vector in
vacuum equals to 2π
λ0 . This definition is well established and consistent thorough out the
literature.
3.1.3 Figure of merit
Another inconsistency arises when we try to evaluate the performance of a particular waveg-
uide structure. Although most of the plasmonic waveguides works based on the same plas-
monic phenomena, they exhibit different characteristics in terms of propagation, confinement
and the trade-off between them. Figure of merit of a certain structure should take into con-
sideration all these effects. Since the propagation distance is well defined we need to choose
a proper definition of confinement in order to quantify figure of merit objectively. We choose
A2 , since this is quite consistent and provides almost similar behaviour of the geometry inde-
pendent definition A3 . A2 usually provides the highest value among the three definitions, so
we will be using it mostly in order to avoid the probability of overestimation of confinement
during the calculation of figure of merit and to avoid the complexity involved in calculating
A3 . Nevertheless, as we argued A3 should be the most consistent definition of mode area, we
will try to use all these definition when we look for effective mode area and compare whenever
possible.
Having said those, figure of merit is defined as ratio between the normalized propagation
length and normalized mode area,
Lp /λ0
F OM = (3.7)
A2 /A0
Here, A0 = ( λ20 )2 is the diffraction limited mode area and λ0 is the vacuum wavelength.
3.2 Slot waveguides
This is one of the earlier structure [29] but still provide reasonable performance compare to
other plasmonic based waveguides. It is based on a slot in a thin metal film embedded in
dielectric as shown in Figure 3.1. The size of the bound mode supported by this waveguide
depends on the near field of the slot. The size of confined mode can be in the deep subwave-
length range and propagation length is around tens of micrometers at telecommunication
wavelength 1.55µm. Such properties are particularly useful for interconnects in hybrid opto-
electronic circuits and devices. We will investigate the physics behind their characteristics by
comparing to some simplified geometries.
3.2.1 Simplified geometries
The behaviour of the plasmonic slot waveguide that is shown in Figure 3.1 can be understood
with the help of some simplified geometries [30]. The corresponding simplified structures
includes the film SPP mode of a metal film with dielectric surrounding (DMD, Fig. 3.2(a)),
gap SPP mode of a dielectric gap with metal surrounding (MDM, Fig. 3.2(b)) and edge mode
of truncated metal film (Fig. 3.2(c)). We will concentrate on the modes in these geometries
which are directly related to the fundamental modes in the slot and later we will show that
many properties of the 3D slot waveguide asymptotically approach those of the simplified
geometries.
We used silver (m = −129 + 3.3i) as metal and silica (d = 2.25) as dielectric [15]. Optical
communication wavelength (λ0 = 1.55µm) has been considered. In Figure 3.2(a) the depen-
dence of effective index on the film thickness h, for the DMD (dielectric-metal-dielectric) is
shown. Although these type of film structures have two modes - higher index short range
27
Figure 3.1: Domain and geometry of a 3D two conductor slot waveguide along with 2D cross-sectional
view.
(SR-SPP) and lower index long range (LR-SPP). We are concerned with SR-SPP mode, since
the relevance with the highly localized mode of slot structure. As we have seen in the previous
chapter when h → 0 , kSR−SP P increases indefinitely which is quite justified in Figure 3.2(a).
On the other hand when h → ∞, the coupling between the surface modes of two interfaces
weakens and therefore nef f approaches nSP P of single interface.
For MDM structure in Figure 3.2(b) has the same dielectric gap as the width of the slot. We
will consider the Gap-SPP (G-SPP) for which the longitudinal component has odd symmetry.
We recall our concept of G-SPP in the limit of very narrow gap kG−SP P ≈= − 2m . The field
d
squeezes into the metal when the gap w decreases and therefore both nef f and loss due to
damping increases. Large w correspond to uncoupled SPP, as in the DMD structure.
Figure 3.2(c) and 3.2(d) show the effective index of a truncated metal film as a function of
h and power density (poynting vector) profile respectively. The edge mode has maximum
power density at the corner of the film because of singular behaviour of electric field near
sharp edges [12]. The only difference with DMD structure in terms of dependence with h is
that, when h → ∞, nef f approaches the effective index of the mode of a single 900 corner
which is little higher than the index of single interface SPP mode.
3.2.2 Characteristic of symmetric slot waveguide
Now we have discussed the simplified structure, we will consider a symmetric plasmonic slot
waveguide structure with slot between two narrow metallic film (silver) which are embedded in
an infinite homogeneous dielectric (silica). We would like to study the dispersion characteristic
of this structure. In order to do that we need to know the complex permittivity of silver at
different wavelength. This is defined by Drude model [12] as,
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 3.2: (a) Effective index of DMD structure as a function of the thickness of the metal film, h
(solid line),(b) Effective refractive index nef f of a silver-silica-silver or MDM structure
as a function of the width of gap region w, refractive index of silica (broken line), (c)
nef f of the fundamental edge mode (truncated Ag film) as a function of thickness of
the Ag film (solid line), index of silica (broken line) (d) Power density distribution of
truncated edge mode for a Ag film of thickness h = 50nm at λ0 = 1.55µm.
ωp2
m = 1 − , (3.8)
ω 2 + iωγ
where, the plasma frequency ωp = 1.38 × 1016 rad/s and the collision frequency γ = 3.2258 ×
1013 rad/s for silver (Ag) [15]. The plot of this equation is shown in Figure 3.3(a). Both the
real and imaginary part decreases with increase of frequency.
Since we are interested in the regime of sub-wavelength our reference structure has a slot
of width w = 50nm and thickness of silver film h = 50nm embedded in homogeneous silica
(d = 2.25). The dispersion relation of the fundamental mode is shown in Figure 3.4(a). We
can see that the wave vector k is a bound mode and is larger than all the radiation mode
in silica. We can also show that k of this wave guide is larger than all the metal film SPP
29
(a) (b)
Figure 3.3: (a) Relative permittivity of silver as a function of frequency using the Drude model. (b)
Ratio of imaginary and real part of the permittivity of silver as function of frequency.
propagating modes over the entire frequency range.
(a) (b)
Figure 3.4: (a) Dispersion relation of the fundamental mode when w, h = 50nm (b) Propagation
length as a function of wavelength for the same structure.
In Figure 3.4(b) we can find the propagation length as a function of wavelength. We recall
1
the definition of propagation length, Lp = 2Im[β] = the distance covered by a mode before the
field energy is attenuated by 1/e. In order to understand the dependence of Lp on wavelength,
we can refer to Figure 3.3(b) where propagation loss (αSP P ∝ Im(m )/Re(m )2 ) with respect
to frequency is shown. When the wavelength decreases the fraction of modal power in the
metal increases, so the propagation length decreases because of increase in damping.
The power density profiles at various wavelength can be found in Figure 3.5(a)-(d). We
observe a highly confined fundamental mode over a wide frequency range. Although at shorter
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 3.5: Power density profile of the fundamental mode when w, h = 50nm for different wave-
length, (a) λ0 = 0.6µm, (b)λ0 = 0.6µm,(c) λ0 = 1µm (telecommunication wavelength),
(d) λ0 = 10µm.
wavelength we have small value of Lp , we can achieve the most confined mode as shown in
Figure 3.5(a). Since fraction of modal power in metal is higher at shorter wavelength, the
fundamental mode is composed mainly of the edge modes which are weakly coupled because
of small decay length into the dielectric. As λ increase and energy density at the middle of
the slot becomes significant and we are getting close to the light line of silica but still as we
can see in Figure 3.5(d) the modal size is far smaller than the wavelength.
Now, we change different geometrical parameters e.g. the width w and the thickness h and
investigate the effect of these parameters on modal characteristics. In Figure 3.6(a) we see the
real part of the effective index as the gap w varies for fixed h = 50nm at 1.55µm wavelength.
Since the thickness of the film is fixed, for small w, nef f is very close to that of the MDM
structures. As the gap increases nef f approaches the similar behaviour of the edge mode
(shown in dash-dotted line). The propagation length Lp increases with the gap size as shown
in Figure 3.6(b). This is quite straight forward because most of the power will be in dielectric
region for large w.
Figure 3.6(c) shows the behaviour of the effective mode area (as defined in section 3.1)as a
31
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 3.6: (a) Effective index nef f as function of slot width w for fixed film thickness h = 50nm
(solid line), the effective indices of the corresponding modes of the simplified structure
are also shown, (b) Dependence of propagation length Lp on the width w, (c) Different
effective mode area as a function of w.
function of w according to different definitions. For very small w, the modal character is
close to MDM, there is only small effect of edge mode. Because of this A1 is little higher
than A3 since A1 is inversely proportional to the maximum energy density. A2 , the statistical
definition usually provides the highest value among the three. Now as w increases the effect of
the edge mode is increasing, so A1 will become smaller than A3 at some point. Nevertheless,
all the three definition follow the same trend, modal area increases with the gap size.
20
18
Propagation length, Lp (µm)

16
14
w = 50nm
12 λ0 = 1.55µm
10
0 50 100 150
h (nm)
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 3.7: (a) Effective index as a function of film thickness h for fixed slot width, w = 50nm,
indices of the corresponding MDM and DMD mode are also shown in dotted line, (b)
Propagation length as function of h, and (c) Effective modal area (A1,2,3 as a function
of h.
In Figure 3.7(a), (b) and (c) we show the behaviour of effective index nef f , propagation length
Lp and modal areas (A1,2,3 ) respectively as a function of film thickness h for a fixed gap size
33
w = 50nm at λ0 = 1.55µm. Both nef f and Lp approaches the asymptotic values of the
corresponding MDM mode as h increases as expected since w is fixed. The behaviour is the
modal area is quite interesting. Since for small h the effective index of the edge mode is quite
high, it will dominate and because of the high field intensity at the edge, the corresponding
value of A1 will be low. A1 increases with h, since the domination of edge mode decreases.
However, A3 and A2 decreases with increasing h at the beginning, upto around 80nm. This
is quite remarkable since in this region of 0 to 80 nm the propagation length is actually
increasing with the film thickness. The reason is when h decreases, below 80nm the modal
profile turns into two weakly coupled edge modes of two films with a fixed gap. The effective
index nef f goes higher (Figure 3.7(a)) and modal size increases since the fringing fields failed
to improve the overall confinement. The propagation will actually decrease because the decay
length in metal increases below 80nm. Since A3 and A2 take into consideration of the actual
total field distribution, this concept is reflected in their behaviour.
3.3 Metal strip waveguides
(a) (b)
Figure 3.8: Metal strip waveguide, (a) Geometry of the waveguide which is composed of silver (Ag)
strip on top of silver substrate and embedded in silica, (b) Power density profile of the
fundamental mode at λ0 = 1.55µm
Metal strip on top of semi-infinitesimal metal slab structure [30] is interesting because this is
quite analogous to the microstrip waveguides which are used at microwave frequency. Actually
this structure is also very similar to the slot waveguide that we discussed int he previous
section. We can consider it one of the film having infinite height h (the metal slab) and
another having finite length wstrip (the metal strip) placed at a finite gap w. The geometry
and power density profile is shown in Figure 3.8(a) and (b) respectively.
We study their behaviour for different gap width and calculate different parameters as a
function of wstrip . As shown in Figure 3.9(a) propagation length decreases with decreasing
wstrip since the fraction of power in the metal increases. The propagation length of the
corresponding slot structure is also shown in dotted line. It is interesting to notice that the
propagation length of the strip actually goes beyond the slot at some length of wstrip . As
wstrip increases the modal area increases as we can see in Figure 3.9(b). This is because there
are power in the dielectric gap region and because of its lower index confinement is not so
high. But after some wstrip the edge mode begins to dominate. Although A2 is not directly
affected by the maximum power density but this will also affect the overall power distribution.
So after some value of wstrip , A2 doesn’t increase any more. This behaviour of the mode is
also reflected in propagation length.
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 3.9: (a) Propagation length of the strip waveguide as a function of wstrip (solid line) for
different gaps and the corresponding propagation length for the slot waveguide (dotted
line), (b) Modal area with respect to wstrip for the strip (solid line) and corresponding
modal area of the slot (dotted line), (c) Figure of merit of strip (solid line) as a function
of the wstrip and the corresponding FOM of the slot (dotted line).
In Figure 3.9(c) we show the FOM as defined in Equation 3.7, of the strip waveguide (solid
line) as a function of wstrip and the corresponding slot waveguide (dotted line) for different w.
35
We observe that FOM of the strip increases with increasing wstrip but it is always less than
that of the slot waveguide. This FOM is also the indication of comparison of the propagation
length for a given modal size. So the performance of strip only approaches to that of plasmonic
slot waveguide only when wstrip → ∞.
3.4 Metal cylinder waveguides (CyPPs)
This structure is composed of a metal (silver) cylinder embedded in dielectric (silica) as

shown in Figure 3.10(a). This is somewhat like single metal-dielectric interface with a
curved/cylindrical surface. The confined mode is known as cylinder plasmon polariton (CyPP)
and capable of performing well in terms of overall energy confinement despite of the simplicity
of the geometry.
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 3.10: Metal cylinder waveguide, (a) Geometry of the waveguide which is composed of silver
(Ag) nanowire embedded in silica, (b) Power density profile of the fundamental mode
at when d = 200nm at λ0 = 1.55µm, (c) Field enhancement when d = 1000nm.
Figure 3.10(b), energy density has been shown for the fundamental mode when d =200 nm.
Energy is confined and enhanced at the circumference of the cylinder. We will examine the
mode character by changing the diameter (d) of the cylinder at 1.55µm wavelength. As we
observe in Figure 3.11(a) and 3.11(b) for small diameter there is more power in the metal
region, so effective index increases and propagation length decreases with decreasing d. In
Figure 3.11(c) we can find the dependence of different mode area on the diameter, d. All
the definition shows similar trend, as effective mode area increases with d. For large d, A1 is
slightly higher than A3 , because the local enhancement decreases with increasing d but still
power is confined to the circumference of the cylinder.
Figure 3.11(d) shows the FOM with respect to the change in diameter. We observe that FOM
decreases rapidly from 356 to around 38, as d increases from 50 nm to 2000 nm. So CyPP
only provide modest confinement although propagation length can reach over 100 µm.
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 3.11: (a) Effective refractive index nef f of the CyPP (cylinder plasmon polariton) mode, (b)
Propagation length Lp as a function of nanowire diameter d, (c) Normalized modal area
as a function of d using different definitions, (d) Figure of merit of the CyPP mode with
respect to the change of d.
3.5 Dielectric-loaded SPP waveguides
In this section we study Si-based dielectric loaded waveguide [31]. We place a Si waveguide
on top of semi-infinite silver substrate. We used permittivity of Si, si = 12.25 (nSi = 3.5)
and permittivity of silver, m = −129 + 3.3i at 1.55 µm wavelength [15]. We changed both
the width w and the height h of the Si waveguide in order to investigate different modal
characteristics.
When the waveguide cross-section is small enough we can only consider the fundamental
T M00 SPP mode. T M10 and T M01 modes only appear when the waveguide cross-section is
above ∼ 320 × 320nm2 [ [31]]. We show the effective index nef f in Figure 3.12(a). When the
waveguide dimension is much smaller the wavelength in silicon (223 nm), then power is pushed
out of the Si and as we expect nef f is close to 1. This leads to a very long propagation shown
in Figure 3.12(b) as the mode becomes leaky. As the width increases close to 200 nm, the
37
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 3.12: (a) Effective index as function of Si waveguide width w, for different height h. As
the cross-sectional area increases the index approaches that of a SPP at Si/Ag single
interface, (b) Propagation length as a function of w for different height h, (c) Normalized
modal area, (d) Power density distribution, the mode is well confined since the cross-
section is around 0.03µm2 .
mode becomes more confined as shown in Figure 3.12(c). The propagation length decreases
as the field begins to penetrate into the metal. The effective index approaches nspp = 3.6789,
the effective index of the SPP mode along the Si/Ag interface.
The figure of merit of the silicon based dielectric loaded is shown in Figure 3.13. FOM
actually increases for smaller cross-section when the width increases. This is because of
the rapid localization of mode when the width increases and the cross-section is around
150 × 200 or 200 × 150 or 300 × 100 (=0.03 µm2 ). But after reaching this region the FOM
will decrease irrespective of the height h of the waveguide, because mode area is increasing
but the propagation remains constant.
240
220
200
180
Figure of merit, FOM)

160
140
120
h = 150 nm
100 h = 200 nm
h = 300 nm
80
60
40
100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Waveguide width, w (nm)
Figure 3.13: FOM of the dielectric loaded SPP waveguide as a function of different cross-sectional
area of Si.
3.6 Hybrid plasmonic waveguides
So far we only discussed pure plasmonic based waveguide which are composed of one metal and
one dielectric. Confinement much smaller than the diffraction limit of light has been achieved
in these structures with moderate propagation length at the range of few tens of micrometer.
But for practical application e.g. photonic integration this length is not sufficient. It has
been reported in several papers hybrid plasmonic waveguides consisting of three material
systems (metal-low index dielectric-high index dielectric) can provide better performance
than the conventional pure plasmonic waveguides [7]. These type of waveguides utilize the
coupling between the SPP and the conventional dielectric mode. We will analyse the modal
characteristics of few of them.
3.6.1 Conductor gap dielectric
In a conductor-gap-dielectric system usually a high index semiconductor material is separated

from the metal by a low index dielectric gap. There are several of such designs available. We
choose the one with a dielectric (Si) nanowire separated from the metal (Ag) substrate by a
narrow gap [7]. The cylindrical nanowire is emerged in silica i.e. the gap region is composed of
low index silica. It has been showed that the hybrid mode can be confined in space more than
100 times smaller than diffraction limited area and along with confinement long propagation
can be achieved.
The cross-sectional geometry of our reference structure can be found in Figure 3.14(a).The
gap region is defined as the area of the low index dielectric directly underneath the cylinder
and above the metal. We are operating at λ0 = 1.55µm and the material parameters are,
m = −129 + 3.3i (Ag), c = 12.25 (Si) and d = 2.25 (Silica). We changed both the diameter
d and the gap width h, in order to see how they affect the mode character. When d decreases
for a fixed h less power is in the cylinder and mode area and propagation decreases since
39
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e) (f)
Figure 3.14: (a) Cross-sectional geometry and coordinates of the hybrid dielectric nanowire waveg-
uide, (b) Effective index of the hybrid mode as a function of d and h, (c) Propagation
length as a function of (d,h), (d)-(f) Normalized modal area according to different
definitions as a function of (d,h), (d) A1 , (e) A2 , (f) A3 .
fraction of modal power in the metal is increasing as expected. But, as we can see in Figure
3.14(c)-(f) after some value of d the behaviour turns just opposite. When d is below some
critical value the mode is more SPP like and above that the mode becomes more cylindrical
like and there will be coupling between these two modes. From the figures it is obvious
that this diameter is around 200 nm. When d < 200 nm propagation length increase with
decreasing of d. When we simulated the Si cylinder alone (without the metal substrate) we
observed that below 200 nm, power is repealing out of the cylinder and mode act like a plane
wave (Figure 3.15). The energy can’t be confined inside the Si nanowire whose d < 200 nm.
This is the actual reason why Lp and mode area A1,2,3 increases below this critical diameter.
Figure 3.15: Power density profile of Si nanowire without the metal slab. Power is repealing out of
the cylinder as the diameter decreases. Below 200 nm power is mainly in the low index
region and effective index is close to that of the surrounding low index dielectric (silica)
When the gap h is very narrow, neither the cylinder or SPP but the gap mode dominates and
strongest confinement can be achieved at the critical diameter. As the gap increases fraction
of power in low index dielectric increases, so we can achieve long propagation. If we take a
closer look to normalized mode areas A1 ,A2 , and A3 , although they have similar trend there
is significant difference between A1 and A2,3 . For A1 when the d and h both is higher then
the area approaches that of cylinder with same diameter. But for A2,3 it approaches even for
a lower value of h since A2,3 considers the overall confinement. This is an underestimation
of the great enhancement of the local field at the gap region for which can only be revealed
from the definition of A1 . Nevertheless for high density integrated circuits we are concerned
about the confinement of the total EM energy and A2,3 should be a more reasonable definition
for modal size. From the Figure 3.16(d) it can be observed that power is spreading in the
dielectric cylinder for a larger d even when h is small ((d, h) = (400, 5) in this case).
To have a deeper understanding of the hybrid behaviour we can define the mode character
using coupled-mode theory. As an approximation hybrid mode is defined as the superposition
of the both modes,
ψ± (d, h) = a± (d, h)ψcyl (d) + b± (d, h)ψspp (3.9)
where ψ± (d, h) is the strength of the hybrid mode, a± (d, h) is the amplitude of the constituent
cylinder mode, ψcyl (d) and b± (d, h) of the SPP mode ψspp , and they are related with b± (d, h) =
p
1 − |a± (d, h)|2 . The mode character is defined as,
nhyb (d, h) − nspp

|a± (d, h)|2 = (3.10)
(nhyb (d, h) − ncyl (d)) + (nhyb (d, h) − nspp )
41
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e) (f)
Figure 3.16: (a) Energy density along y = −d/2 (dashed line in upper left inset) for different values
of h when d = 200 nm. There is a dip at x = 0 since power is entering in the cylinder.
(b) Energy density along x = 0 (dashed line in the inset), strong field enhancement
in the gap region. (c) Energy density distribution for (d,h) = (200,5), field is strongly
confined in the gap, (d) (d,h) = (400,5), power has began to enter the large cylinder,
(e)(d,h)=(400,10) even more power in the cylinder for larger gap, (f) (d,h) = (400,50)
almost all the power inside the cylinder.
0.9
SPP − like
0.8
Mode character, |a+ (d, h)|2

0.7
0.6 h = 5 nm
h = 10 nm
0.5 h = 25 nm
h = 50 nm
0.4
0.3
0.2
Dielectric Cylinder − like
0.1
0
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Si nanowire diameter, d (nm)
Figure 3.17: Hybridization of the modal character, maximum coupling between modes occur when
d is around 200 nm.
As plotted in Figure 3.17, after the critical diameter the coupled mode is more cylindrical like
and below the critical diameter it is more SPP like. Narrower the gap the mode character
stays closer to the middle.
Figure 3.18: Figure of merit of the hybrid nanowire waveguide as function of d and h. Definition
using both A1 and A2 is shown.
We showed the FOM of this hybrid plasmonic waveguide in Figure 3.18 as a function of the
diameter for different values of h. For small values of d below the critical value the FOM
increases with d. After reaching the critical value FOM doesn’t vary a lot with d. This is
because although propagation is increasing, confinement is decreasing (mode size increasing)
proportionally. Smaller the h, larger FOM can be achieved which is clearly revealed with A1
but not so clearly with A2 . We calculated FOM in terms of both A1 and A2 . Although as we
discussed A2 underestimates the field enhancement for narrow gap region, overall both the
definition follow the same trend.
43
3.6.2 Hybrid plasmonic waveguide with a metal cap
Another interesting hybrid structure is the metal cap on top of a Si rib separated by thin
silica film as shown in Figure 3.19(a) [33]. Even a simplified structure is possible with the rib
replaced by a slab which is even easier to fabricate.
(a)
(b) (c)
Figure 3.19: (a) Cross-sectional geometry of the hybrid metal cap with rib structure (left), when rib
replaced with slab (right), (b) Effective index as function of the width of the waveguide,
(c) Power density distribution when (w,h) = (200,10).
Figure 3.19(b) shows the effective refractive index of the waveguide as a function of the core
width for different height of the silica layer. If the thickness of the silica layer is narrow,
nef f approaches nSP P of Ag/Si as w → ∞. On the other hand, nef f is close nSP P of
Ag/Silica when w → 0 and h → ∞. In Figure 3.19(c) the power distribution is showed when
hsilica = 10nm. It is evident that power is well confined in the low index silica region. When
we increase the width w of the waveguide, there will be more power in the Si rib, so the
propagation length increases with the width as shown in figure 3.20(a). Also if we reduce
the silica film thickness h, the fraction of power in the metal increases, so thicker the silica
film, longer the propagation length is. We notice that for thin film the propagation distance
doesn’t vary a lot along with the width. But for large film thickness there is huge variation
when the width is increased. As we mentioned for small h, more power in the metal, the
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 3.20: (a) Propagation length as a function of core width (w) for different h, (b) Calculated
normalized modal area as a function of w and h, (c) Energy density in the middle of
the silica layer along y and x axis respectively.
mode in the Si rib and the surface plasmon mode are more strongly coupled, so the effective
mode area is very small (Figure 3.20(b)). Because of this strong coupling with the surface
plasmon mode the propagation distance can’t increase a lot along with the width. Surface
plasmon mode doesn’t really depend on width of the waveguide.
In Figure 3.21 the FOM is plotted in a different way. This is known as graphical representation
of figure of merit [34]. This represents relative measure of performance e.g. amount of
propagation that can be achieved at same amount of confinement if we consider any vertical
line through the trajectories of this graph.
45
Figure 3.21: Graphical figure of merit : normalized propagation distance with respect to normalized
mode area for different silica thickness.
Chapter 4
Waveguide design and analysis
After understanding the principle behind SPP waveguides and analysing different modal char-
acteristics of existing plasmonic waveguides, a new design based on the high index semiconduc-
tor and utilizing the hybrid mode is proposed in this chapter. The existing hybrid plasmonic
waveguides e.g. dielectric cylinder nanowire [7], metal cap on Si rib [33] and hybrid ring struc-
tures [36] are capable of propagating electromagnetic wave over a longer distance compared
to the pure plasmonic slot waveguide [29]. Nevertheless their confinement is relatively low
which is not suitable for high density integrated circuits. So our design motivation was to
achieve both strong confinement and long propagation. Although there is always a trade-off
between the two, various architectures may exhibit different behaviour in terms of figure of
merit. The new design is inspired from the hybrid mode proposed in Ref. [7], where better
performance than the conventional pure plasmonic modes has been showed using graphical
figure of merit. In the next sections we will discuss about the modal characteristics of the
new design including the physics behind the behaviour. At the end of this chapter, the per-
formance of this waveguide against the existing hybrid and conventional waveguides will be
compared.
4.1 Geometry and dispersion characteristics
In Figure 4.1(a) we can find the cross-sectional geometry of the new structure. The metal
(Ag) nanowire of diameter d is separated from a square high index dielectric strip of width
w by a nanoscale low index dielectric (Silica) gap of h. The individual permittivities of the
materials are m = −129 + 3.3i (Ag) [15], d = 2.25 (Silica) and s = 18.2756 (strip) at
telecommunication wavelength λ0 = 1.55µm. A potentially practical material having such
a high permittivity of 18.2756 is Germanium at this wavelength [37]. Although natural
Germanium exhibits loss, it has been reported and experimentally demonstrated that highly
n-doped and appropriately pumped Germanium can overcome its inherent loss close to 1590
nm [38]. Germanium can therefore be an interesting dielectric material for miniaturized
47
48 Chapter 4. Waveguide design and analysis
plasmonic circuit design owing to its high index. In our numerical investigations, for simplicity
both the high and low index dielectrics are assumed to be lossless and dispersionless. In the
wavelength range 1µm to 5µm the index of Ge only varies from around 4.4 to 4.1.
(a) (b)
Propagation length vs. wavelength, when [w,h] = [300,10]

4
10
Propagation length, (μm)
3
10
2
10
1
10
0 2 4 6 8 10
Wavelength, λ0 (μm)
(c) (d)
Figure 4.1: (a) Cross-sectional geometry and domain of the new hybrid plasmonic waveguide. A
metal cylindrical nanowire of permittivity m is placed on top of a high index dielectric
strip of permittivity s . They are separated from each other by a nanoscale dielectric
gap with permittivity d . The diameter of the metal cylinder is d and width of the
square strip is w. (b) Dispersion relation of the fundamental mode when h = 10nm
and w = 300nm. Dispersion relation of hybrid Si nanowire waveguide (d, h) = (200, 10)
is also shown along with the silica light line. (c) Propagation length as function of
wavelength when (w, h) = (300, 10).(d) Effective index of the hybrid mode for different
gap size h and strip width w. Effective indices of pure dielectric strip mode (solid line)
and pure nanowire SPP mode (dotted line) is also shown.
In order to find the dispersive permittivity of silver Drude model has been used. During
the calculation of the dispersion characteristic we used (w, h) = (300, 10). The dispersion
characteristic of hybrid Si nanowire structure [7] is also shown for comparison. The hybrid
fundamental mode of our reference structure is guided for a broad range of frequencies. As
49
expected the guided mode is located below the light cone (light line of silica) as shown in
Figure 4.1(b). On the other hand the hybrid Si nanowire doesn’t have guided mode at low
frequencies (as can be seen from the bottom part of the corresponding curve goes above the
light line. Also the wavevector of our reference structure is larger (λSP P is smaller) than
that of hybrid Si nanowire at higher frequencies. So we can expect better confinement of
optical beams as we have seen in Equation 2.38. The propagation distance as a function of
the wavelength is shown in Figure 4.1(c). As the wavelength increases starting from 0.5µm
the propagation distance rapidly decreases from very high values. At shorter wavelength
(higher freqeuncy) there is more loss in the metal (Figure 3.3(b)). So this is contrary to
the conventional pure plasmonic case. Actually at shorter wavelength the absolute value of
the real part of the permittivity of the metal is very low, e.g. m = 7.57 at λ0 = 0.4µm
and 12.3987 at λ0 = 0.5µm. Since s > m , at these wavelengths the fraction of power
in the higher index dielectric is very high (left most plot in Figure 4.2) which results long
propagation. When wavelength increases, Re|(m )| increases, so will the fraction of power in
the metal which induces loss. After around 4µm propagation again increases (loss reduces)
slightly along with wavelength. This is because after a certain wavelength the dispersion
relation is closer to the light line of silica (lower end of the curve). Since the modal index is
close to that of the surrounding, power begins to radiate away from the gap (right most plot
of Figure 4.2) and loss due to damping in the metal decreases.
Figure 4.2: Distribution of energy density for different wavelength for the reference structure (w, h) =
(300, 10).
The effective index for a range of strip width w and gap h is shown in Figure 4.1(d) compared
to the indices of the pure dielectric strip, nstrip (w) (black solid line) and pure metal nanowire,
nCyP P (black dotted line) when diameter of the nanowire d = 200nm. The higher the width
w, more strip-like the mode is i.e. nef f approaching the index of high index dielectric. When
the width w is smaller and h → ∞, the mode is more cylinder plasmon polariton (CyPP)
like and nef f approaches the effective index (nCyP P = 1.605)of metal nanowire of diameter
200nm.
4.2 Confinement and propagation
Figure 4.3(a) shows the confinement as a function of the width w for different h while the
A2 is been used as the definition of the modal area. Similar to the behaviour of the hybrid
4
10
h = 2 nm
h = 5 nm
h = 10 nm
Normalized mode area, A2/A0
h = 20 nm
Propagation length, Lp (μm)

3
Pure SPP Ag−Ge
−1
10 10 Pure SPP Ag−Silica
h = 2 nm
h = 5 nm
h = 10 nm 2
h = 20 nm 10
Pure Strip mode
−2
10
1
10
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Strip width, w (nm) Strip width, w (nm)
(a) (b)
3
10
−1
10
w= 250 nm
Propagation length, Lp (μm)

Normalized mode area, A1 /A0
2
10
−2 10
h = 2 nm
h = 5 nm
h = 10 nm
10
−3 h = 20 nm
Pure Ge strip mode
1
10
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 0 10 20 30 40 50
Strip width, w (nm) Gap height, h (nm)
(c) (d)
Figure 4.3: (a) Normalized mode area as a function of strip width w for different values of h, com-
pared with the modal area of the pure dielectric strip mode (black solid line). (b)
Propagation length of the hybrid mode with respect to w for different h. Propagation
distance for pure SPP mode at Ag-silica and Ag-Ge interfaces are also shown by upper
dashed-dotted and lower dashed lines respectively. (c) Modal area as a function of width
when A1 is used as the definition. (d) Propagation distance as a function the gap h for
a fixed width w = 250nm.
Si nanowire [7] below some critical width of the higher index dielectric modal area increase
with decreasing the width. The propagation behaviour shown in Figure 4.3(b) also show this
opposite behaviour below the critical width. After the critical width propagation increases
with increasing the width so the modal area. The modal area of the pure dielectric strip alone
is also been calculated(black solid line). If we consider A1 , when w → ∞, the normalized
modal area A1 /A0 (Figure 4.3(c)) approaches that of the pure strip only when h is large.
This is not consistent with the result calculated using A2 as shown in Figure 4.3(a), where
the modal area approaches that of dielectric strip alone, whenever w is wider regardless of h.
After examining the power distribution profile (Figure 4.7(c)-(f)), it has been found that at
wider width region the power begins to spread in high index strip even for a smaller gap. We
also checked the confinement properties using A3 which shows similar outcome as A2 (not
included in plot). In addition, we will show in Figure 4.8 that, the mode is more strip like in
51
the wider gap region. So, we conclude the definition A2 is suitable to calculate confinement
properties of coupled modes since it considers the confinement of the total electromagnetic
energy and should be applied for integration related applications. A1 directly relates with the
Purcell factor and is only useful for application related with nonlinearity and active devices
where the local field enhancement is particularly needed.
4.2.1 Effect of gap width
The effect of the gap size on the propagation is shown in Figure 4.3(d). As the gap increases for
fixed strip width (=250 nm) and nanowire diameter d (= 200 nm), the propagation increases
almost exponentially. This is because there is less power in the metal and more power in the
lossless lower index dielectric as the h increases.
4.2.2 Effect of nanowire diameter
During the calculation of the confinement and propagation as shown in Figure 4.3(a)-(d), a
fixed diameter d = 200nm has been used. The nanowire supports the pure CyPP mode as we
discussed in the previous chapter. Now we will see the effect of the diameter on confinement
and propagation for fixed w and h.
Figure 4.4: Power density profile of cylindrical Ag nanowire without the strip for different diameter.
As from our study of CyPP, we know that the propagation and modal area increases with
the diameter for a metal nanowire. But from Figure 4.5(b) after the diameter reaches around
200nm the propagation slowly begins to decrease. The reason behind this is, although initially
because of the effect of CyPP propagation may increase as the size of the nanowire increases
the fraction of modal power in the metal increases because of the Gap mode. The Gap mode
and the CyPP complement each other and confinement is almost constant after d = 200nm
as shown in Figure 4.5(a). So we conclude the diameter of the nanowire doesn’t affect the
confinement or propagation that much, and we can choose the diameter around 150 − 200nm.
0 3
10 10
[w,h] = [500,5]
[w,h] = [300,5]
Propagation distance, (µm)

−1
10
h = 5 nm, w = 500 nm
h = 5 nm, w = 300 nm
2
10
−2
10
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
Diameter of metal nanowire, d (nm) Diameter of metal nanowire, d (nm)
(a) (b)
Figure 4.5: (a) Effect of nanowire diameter on the confinement for (w,h) = (300,5) and (500,5). (b)
Propagation length as function of the diameter, d.
Figure 4.6: Power density profile of the square shaped dielectric strip without the metal nanowire.
Power is repealing out of the strip as the width decreases. Below 150 nm power is mainly
in the low index region and effective index is close to that of the surrounding low index
dielectric (silica).
4.2.3 Effect of strip width
Figure 4.6 is an illustration of how power has began to leak out of the strip waveguide as the
width w decreases. Again refer to the confinement property in Figure 4.3(a) and 4.3(c) the
flip of the mode occurs around 150nm since the strip can’t support power inside the strip
any more and power is spreading out in the low index region below this width. So below
this value both the modal area and propagation increases with decreasing of w. As the width
increases above the critical value, propagation and modal area again increases with increasing
the width.
4.3 Power distribution profile
In Figure 4.7(a) and 4.7(b) we can see there is field enhancement in the gap region for both x
and y direction. This is why subwavelength confinement can be achieved in two dimensions
with this structure. The rest of the plots show confinement of the guided mode for different
gap sizes and strip widths.
53
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e) (f)
Figure 4.7: (a)Power density along y = −d/2 (as shown by the dotted line in the inset) for different
values of h when w = 250nm, (b) Power density profile along x = 0 (as shown by
the dotted line in the inset), strong enhancement of energy in the gap region, (c) Power
density distribution for [w,h] = [200,2]. Because of the narrow gap and smaller waveguide
width (w) energy is strongly confined in the gap region, (d) For [w,h] = [500,2]. Although
the waveguide width increases still there is high confinement. (e)For [w,h] = [10,200].
Still high confinement because of smaller waveguide width. (f) For [w,h] = [20,400] power
is leaking out of the gap region toward the high index dielectric waveguide since both w
and h is large.
4.4 Analysis of hybrid mode
0.9
SPP − like
2
0.8
Modal character, |a+(w,h)|
0.7
h = 2 nm
h = 5 nm
0.6 h = 10 nm
h = 20 nm
0.5
Ge Strip − like
0.4
0.3
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500
w (nm)
Figure 4.8: Strip waveguide mode character as determined from |a+ (w, h)|2 . Maximum coupling
between the plasmonic (CyPP) and strip mode occurs near 180 nm. In this regime both
the mode consists equal portions of their strength and highly confined gap mode can be
achieved.
Again using the coupled mode theory we describe the hybrid nature of our structure. Using
superposition of modes,
ψ± (w, h) = a± (w, h)ψstrip (w) + b± (w, h)ψCyP P (d) (4.1)
where ψ± (w, h) is the strength of the hybrid mode, a± (w, h) is the amplitude of the constituent
strip mode, ψstrip (w) and b± (w, h) is of the CyPP mode ψCyP P (d) of the nanowire, and they
p
are related with b± (w, h) = 1 − |a± (w, h)|2 . The mode character is defined as [7],
nhyb (w, h) − nCyP P (d)

|a± (w, h)|2 = (4.2)
(nhyb (w, h) − nstrip (w)) + (nhyb (w, h) − nspp (d))
As plotted in Figure 4.8, after the critical strip width the coupled mode is more dielectric-
strip-mode and below the critical width it is more CyPP like. Narrower the gap, more in the
middle the mode character stays. This means for h → 0 the mode approaches those of Gap
SPP.
4.5 Coupling between two parallel waveguides
When we are aiming for ultra high integration density, the optical components need to be
placed close together. When waveguides are placed closed enough, power in one waveguide
55
may couple to the power in another. This is known as cross-talk (XT). Coupling reduces as
the separation between waveguides increases. It is very important to examine how closely
two waveguides can be placed so that they suffer from negligible cross-talk. The expression
for cross-talk is given by [39],
π
XT = 10 log10 [sin( l0 /Lc )], (4.3)
2
where, Lc is defined as the coupling length and l0 is the propagation distance. The formula
for coupling length is,
π
Lc = (4.4)
βe − βo
Here, βe and βo are the wave vectors in propagating direction (propagation constant) for even
and odd supermodes respectively. When fields of the confined mode in the waveguides are
in the same direction then the modes are defined as the even and when the field are in the
opposite direction then the modes are odd supermodes as shown in Figure 4.9(a) and 4.9(b).
In Figure 4.9(c) we calculated coupling length using Eq.(4.4) as a function of strip width w
for different separation s between two parallel waveguides. The separation s is defined as
the center to center distance between two parallel waveguides. The optimal core width for
maximum coupling length is around 200 nm. The coupling length should be large enough so
that cross-talk XT < XT0 after a propagation distance. we can translate this into [40],
π l0
Lc > −1 ≡ Lc(min) (4.5)
2 sin (10XT0 /20)
If we set maximum tolerable cross talk XT0 = −25dB, the required coupling distance is
Lc(min) ≈ 27.9l0 [40]. In Figure 4.9(d) we plot Lc as a function of separation s for fixed
width w = 200nm and gap h = 5nm. The corresponding coupling length of hybrid Si
nanowire is also shown in the same figure. We can see the coupling length of the new design
rises exponentially with separation between the waveguides and significantly larger than the
coupling length of the Si nanowire waveguides.
The separation which provides the minimum coupling length to avoid cross-talk is known as
the decoupling separation. If we assume propagation distance l0 around 25µm for narrow gap
size, we can find Lc(min) ≈ 700µm. After this length coupling will become negligible. Figure
4.10 shows decoupling separation (sdc ) for the novel waveguide for different gap size. We have
found sdc as small as 690 nm. This is helpful to achieve very high density of integration e.g.
to make ultracompact directional couplers [40].
(a)
(b)
4 4
10 10
Hybrid Si nanowire [d,h] = [200,5]

Novel hybrid WG [w,h] = [200,5]
3 3
10 10
Coupling length, Lc (μm)
Coupling length, Lc(μm)
2 2
10 10
1 1
10 s = 400 nm 10
s = 500 nm
s = 600 nm
s = 700 nm
s = 750 nm
s = 800 nm
0 0
10 10
150 200 250 300 350 400 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Width, w (nm) Separation s (nm)
(c) (d)
Figure 4.9: (a,b) Distribution of the principle electrical field (Ey ) for even and odd supermode, when
two waveguides are placed side by side, (a) Two parallel Hybrid dielectric strip waveguide,
(b) Two parallel Hybrid Si nanowire.(c) Calculated coupling length as a function of
waveguide width (w) for different separation distances when gap width h = 2nm. (d)
Calculated coupling length as a function of separation for both novel waveguide and the
hybrid Si nanowire waveguide. The strip based waveguide has significant higher coupling
length.
57
5
10
4 gap, h = 5 nm
10
Coupling length, Lc (μm) gap, h = 2 nm
3
10
2
10
1
10
0
10
300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000
Separation s (nm)
Figure 4.10: Coupling length as a function of separation when waveguide width w = 200nm for
different gaps. The decoupled separation for the novel waveguide could be as small as
690 nm.
4.6 Figure of merit
Figure 4.11 shows a parametric plot of confinement versus propagation distance for various
plasmonic waveguides. This plot is independent of corresponding waveguide structural pa-
rameters, since propagation distances can be found for the same amount of confinement for
different structures [7]. This is a more fair comparison than single-valued figure of merit. We
call it graphical figure of merit. The trajectories which are towards the top left of the plot
will have the best performance in this representation. The hybrid Si nanowire waveguide was
presented to be the better hybrid waveguide according to this, as reported in Ref. [7]. From
the plot it is evident that our proposed new structure outperforms all the other waveguides
in terms of propagation for comparable mode areas. It also has smaller decoupling separation
and can be applied to a broad wavelength range.
In the same novel structure, Ge (s = 18.2756) has been replaced with Si (s = 12.25) in order
to see how modal properties change. Even with Si strip, the novel structure performs better
than others i.e. longer propagation with same amount of confinement can be achieved. Use of
Si may provide compatibility with the current silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platform but at cost
of lower performance than Ge (lossless case with the help of doping and optical pumping).
Although the pure plasmonic slot waveguide has trajectory towards the bottom it has better
confinement than all other waveguides along with moderate propagation.
Normalized propagation distance, Lp /λ0 10

2
1
10
Plasmonic slot waveguide

Novel design with Ge strip
10
0 Novel design with Si strip
Hybrid Si nanowire
−3 −2 −1 0
10 10 10 10
(a)
3
10
0
Normalized propagation length, L /λ
Novel Design
p
Hybrid Si nanowire
2
10
1
10 −3 −2 −1
10 10 10
Normalized mode area, A1/A0
(b)
Figure 4.11: (a) Graphical figure of merit : A plot of normalized propagation length Lp /λ0 versus
normalized mode area A2 /A0 for different structures. For each trajectory one structural
parameter h = [2, 50]nm (for slot, w = [10, 200]) is continuously varied. Width of the
new waveguide structure w = 250nm, diameter of the hybrid Si nanowire waveguide
d = 200nm, and thickness of the metal film in the slot waveguide h = 50nm, were kept
fixed. (b) Similar trajectory when normalized modal area A1 /A0 is used.
Chapter 5
Optical trapping
Optical forces generated from the gradient of the electromagnetic field between coupled waveg-
uides are important for various optomechanical applications and nanoparticle manipulation in
chip scale photonic devices. Such forces in suspended waveguides in a SOI platform is rather
limited at a level of few piconewtons per micrometer per miliwatts (pN/µm/mW ) [41]. This
can be increased in coupled photonic waveguides by orders of magnitude due to the enhance-
ment of the optical field [42]. Even stronger force is achievable using hybrid plasmonic waveg-
uides [43]. Since electromagnetic waves can be confined in deep subwavelength scale using
plasmonic effect, this will result in greatly enhanced gradient of light field. Nanoscale optical
tweezers capable of trapping single nanoparticle can also be realized with the help plasmonic
nanostructures [44]. In this chapter optical gradient forces in hybrid plasmonic structures
based on high index dielectric nanowires has been investigated. The schematic of the base
structure can be found in Figure 3.14(a). Si nanowire on the top of the metal substrate
has been replaced by different materials to see the effect of the optical forces. Nanoparticle
trapping forces are also calculated with the help of Maxwell’s Stress Tensor (MST). The ma-
terial parameters that has been used during calculation are, si = 12.25, Ge = 18.2756 [37],
Ag = −129 + 3.3i [15] at λ0 = 1.55µm. During the numerical investigation, again the Ge is
assumed to be doped and pumped properly [38] to overcome the inherit loss.
5.1 Force in hybrid Si nanowire
A Si nanowire of diameter d, is separated from the metal (Ag) substrate by an air gap, h, in
this waveguide. Because of the hybrid nature, there is coupling between the dielectric cylinder
mode and SPP mode supported by the metal substrate. The stronger the coupling, the more
energy concentration in the gap region will be. It also affects the gradient optical force acting
on the dielectric waveguide which is calculated by integrating corresponding component of
the Maxwell stress tensor (MST) T over a contour enclosing the cylinder waveguide. The
59
60 Chapter 5. Optical trapping
averaged force is given as, Z

Fα = Tαα nα dl (5.1)
C
where the components of the Maxwell’s stress tensor, T is given by [12],

1
Tαβ = 0 Eα Eβ + µµ0 Hα Hβ − (0 E · E + µµ0 H · H)δαβ (5.2)
2
where, the Cartesian coordinate is denoted by α and β, C is the contour line enclosing the
waveguide, n is the unit normal vector to the edge of the contour, dl is the differential element
of the line integral.
Figure 5.1(b) shows the calculated optical force on the Si cylinder without propagation loss
using MST. The effective indices as a function of the diameter d and gap h is shown in Figure
5.1(a). The peak force for a fixed gap occurs when the index of the cylinder mode is around
the index of the substrate mode. The corresponding d is around 250 nm to 300 nm for the
hybrid Si nanowire waveguide in order to achieve maximum force. Negative values of the
force denotes that attractive force is acting on the Si nanowire. Force increases from -8.815
to -155.203 pN µm−1 mW −1 as the gap reduces from 50 nm to 5 nm with d = 250nm. So the
maximum achievable force at 5 nm gap is -155.203 pN µm−1 mW −1 with this waveguide.
3.5 20
0
3
−20
Favg (pN µm−1 mW −1 )
2.5 −40
h = 5 nm
−60
h = 10 nm
neff
2 h = 20 nm
h = 50 nm −80
Si nanowire h = 5 nm
−100 h = 10 nm
1.5
h = 20 nm
−120 h = 50 nm
1 −140
−160
0.5
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 100 200 300 400 500 600
Si nanowire diameter, d (nm) Nanowire diameter, d (nm)
(a) (b)
Figure 5.1: (a) The effect of waveguide diameter d and air gap h on the values of the effective index
of the hybrid plasmonic mode. Indices of pure Si cylinder and SPP mode are shown as
black solid line and broken line respectively. (b) Optical force as a function of d and h
acting on the Si cylinder without propagation loss.
5.1.1 Force with propagation loss
If the propagation direction is z, total optical power P (z) will decay along z direction because
of propagation loss. Since the optical force depends on the power, it will also be affected by the
loss. If the total length of the waveguide is L, the average force per unit length is calculated
as [43],
61
L
−z

F0
Z
Favg = exp dz (5.3)
L 0 Lp
Here, F0 is the optical force without propagation loss calculated from MST and Lp is the
propagation distance.
20 0
−20
0
−40

−20
−60
−40 −80
h = 5 nm
h = 10 nm
h = 5 nm −100
−60 h = 20 nm
h = 10 nm h = 50 nm
h = 20 nm −120
h = 50 nm
−80
−140
−100 −160 0 1 2 3
100 200 300 400 500 600 10 10 10 10
Nanowire diameter, d (nm) Waveguide length, L (µm)
(a) (b)
Figure 5.2: (a) The average optical force with propagation loss acting on the Si cylinder waveguide
when the waveguide length is fixed at L = 50µm. (b) The averaged optical force as a
function of waveguide length L, when d = 250nm.
Figure 5.2(a) shows the amplitude of the average values of the forces for a waveguide with
length L = 50µm. The maximum achievable force is reduced from -155.203 to -98.3704
pN µm−1 mW −1 for h = 5nm as expected. As the waveguide becomes longer the amplitude
of the force decreases because of propagation loss which is shown in Figure 5.2(b).
5.1.2 Nanoparticle trapping
Now we can use this greatly enhanced gradient force in the gap region to efficiently trap
nanoparticles such as bio-molecules and quantum dots. This was difficult with traditional
optical tweezers since the trapping strength and minimum size of the particle is limited by
diffraction. It has been shown recently that dielectric particles with size as small as 50 nm
can be precisely trapped [44].
The gradient force applied on a Rayleigh particle (which has diameter much smaller than the
wavelength) can be calculated using [45],
n3m r3 m2 − 1

F =− ∇E 2 (5.4)
2 m2 − 2
where, r is the radius of the nanoparticle, nm is the index of the environmental medium, the
ratio of the indices of particle and surrounding medium is m, and ∇E is the gradient of the
(a)
800
h = 10 nm
h = 20 nm
600 h = 30 nm
400
Fx (fN µm−1 mW −1 )
200
−200
−400
−600
−800
−100 −50 0 50 100
Particle position, x (nm)
(b)
Figure 5.3: (a) Power distribution profile for the hybrid mode when a 5nm diameter nanoparticle is
placed at different x position in the middle of the gap, (b) Optical trapping force along
x direction exerted on a single nanoparticle at different position for different air gap, h
under the Si nanowire of diameter d = 220nm.
63
electric field distribution.
For this study a polystyrene particle of diameter 5 nm is placed in the middle of the gap.
The refractive index of the particle is 1.59 and the surrounding medium is water (nm = 1.33).
Two-dimensional simulations are performed using COMSOL RF module. Gradient forces are
calculated for different position (-100 to 100) of the particle along x axis using MST. The
perturbation by the particle to the hybrid mode was found to be weak because of the small
size and index of the particle compared to the Si waveguide.
The trapping force increases with reducing the gap size as shown in Figure 5.3(b). The
maximum trapping occurs at around |x| = 20nm for h = 5nm and gradually shifts towards
longer distance as h increases. The most important feature of the curve is the flip of the
sign of the force when the particle moves around x = 0. It indicates that the particle can be
trapped just underneath the Si nanowire.
5.2 Force in hybrid Ge nanowire
All the steps required to calculate the gradient force has been repeated for the case of Ge
nanowire waveguide. The structure is same as the previous one, only the top Si nanowire
is replaced by Ge nanowire. It has been found that using Ge, instead of Si we can increase
the amplitude of the force from -155.203 to -214.39 pN µm−1 mW −1 for the same gap size
h = 5nm as shown in Figure 5.4(b). The only difference is for Ge, this peak force occurs at
around 200 nm of diameter. This shift can be explained from Figure 5.4(a) from the index
behaviour.
4
0
3.5
−50
3
Fy (pN µm−1 mW −1 )
h = 5 nm
2.5 h = 10 nm h = 5 nm
−100
h = 20 nm h = 10 nm
neff
Ge nanowire h = 20 nm
2
−150
1.5
−200
1
0.5 −250
100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550 600 100 200 300 400 500 600
Ge nanowire diameter, d (nm) Ge nanowire diameter, d (nm)
(a) (b)
Figure 5.4: (a) The effect of waveguide diameter d and air gap h on the values of the effective index
of the hybrid plasmonic mode when the cylinder is composed of Ge. Indices of pure Ge
cylinder and SPP mode are shown as color solid and broken line respectively. (b) Optical
force as a function of d and h acting on the Ge cylinder without propagation loss.
5.2.1 Force with propagation loss
Considering the propagation loss the optical force on the Ge nanowire is calculated again
using Equation 5.3. The corresponding plots can be found in Figure 5.5(a) and 5.5(b).
20 0
0
−50
−20

−40
−100 h = 5 nm
h = 5 nm h = 10 nm
−60 h = 10 nm h = 20 nm
h = 20 nm
−150
−80
−100
−200
Ge, d = 200 nm
−120
−140 −250 0 1 2 3
100 200 300 400 500 600 10 10 10 10
Ge nanowire diameter, d (nm) Waveguide length, L (µm)
(a) (b)
Figure 5.5: (a) The average optical force with propagation loss acting on the Ge cylinder waveguide
when the waveguide length is fixed at L = 50µm. (b) The averaged optical force as a
function of waveguide length L, when d = 200nm.
5.2.2 Nanoparticle trapping
In Figure 5.6(b), it can be observed that the amplitude of the optical trapping force in
the Ge nanowire waveguide is approximately twice than the force with silicon waveguide
(−1315.082 f N µm−1 mW −1 in Ge compare to −696.95 f N µm−1 mW −1 in Si, when the gap
h = 10nm). So Ge nanowire has better performance than the Si nanowire as an optical
tweezer.
5.3 Force in plasmonic metal nanowire
The gradient optical forces are calculated in case the Si nanowire is replaced by a silver (Ag)
nanowire. The average total force and particle trapping has been shown in Figure 5.7(a) and
(b) respectively.
5.4 Force in hybrid Ge strip novel waveguide
The novel structure that was proposed for high density integrated circuits in the previous
chapter, is checked in terms of force characteristics. Now the Ag nanowire is separated from
the Ge strip by an air gap of h. With this structure as high as -223.615 pN µm−1 mW −1
65
(a)
(b)
Figure 5.6: (a) Power distribution profile for the hybrid mode when a 5nm diameter nanoparticle is
placed at different x position under the Ge cylinder of diameter d = 220nm. (b) Optical
trapping force along x direction exerted on a single nanoparticle at different position for
different air gap, h after using Ge nanowire.
350 4000
h = 10 nm
h = 20 nm 3000 h = 10 nm
300 h = 50 nm h = 20 nm
h = 30 nm
2000
250
1000
200 0
−1000
150
−2000
100
−3000
50 −4000
100 200 300 400 500 600 −100 −50 0 50 100
Ag nanowire diameter, d (nm) Particle position, x (nm)
(a) (b)
Figure 5.7: (a) Optical force as a function of d and h acting on the Ag cylinder without propagation
loss. The force increases with increasing the diameter. The sign of the force is positive
which denotes repulsive force.(b) Optical trapping force along x direction exerted on a
single nanoparticle at different position for different air gap, h while the diameter of
the Ag nanowire d = 220nm. Although the force exerted on the metal nanowire was
repulsive, still the nanoparticle can be trapped the same way it did for Si or Ge.
1500
h = 10 nm
0 h = 20 nm
h = 30 nm
1000
−50
500
−100
0
−150
−500
−200 −1000
−250 −1500
100 200 300 400 500 600 −100 −50 0 50 100
Ge strip width, w (nm) Particle position, x (nm)
(a) (b)
(c)
Figure 5.8: (a) Optical force as a function of w and h acting on the Ge strip waveguide without prop-
agation loss,(b) Optical trapping force along x direction exerted on a single nanoparticle
at different position for different air gap, h above the Ge strip of width (w = 250nm).
The amplitude of the trapping force is higher than that of the Si nanowire on metal
substrate, (c) Power distribution profile when a 5nm diameter polystyrene particle is
placed at the middle of the gap at different x positions.
of force can be achieved (Figure 5.8(a)) which is significantly higher than the Si nanowire
waveguide (-155.203 pN µm−1 mW −1 ) and comparable with hybrid Ge nanowire waveguide
(-214.39 pN µm−1 mW −1 ). Particle trapping is shown in Figure 5.8(c). A polystyrene particle
of 5nm diameter is placed at the middle of the gap and trapping force on the particle has
been calculated at different position along x. The magnitude of the maximum trapping force
has been calculated as 1021.103 f N µm−1 mW −1 which is again greater than the force with
Si nanowire (684.74 f N µm−1 mW −1 ) as shown in Figure 5.8(b).
Chapter 6
Conclusion
Plasmonic waveguides utilizing the features of low dimensional evanescent waves, provide
the opportunity to confine light to sub-wavelength dimension. Various promising plasmonic
waveguide structures including thin metal film slot waveguides, metal strips, dielectric loaded
surface plasmon waveguides, hybrid Si nanowire and metal cap on Si rib waveguides are ex-
plored and their modal characteristics have been cross-compared. These waveguides exhibit
different behaviour in terms of mode size, propagation loss and the trade-off between them.
The modal area is calculated using different definitions in order to consistently measure the
performance of each waveguides. Metal thin film structures provide the very small mode
area but localization for both direction is limited on the order of few micrometers. Hybrid
plasmonic waveguides effectively utilize the coupling between the dielectric and surface plas-
mon modes and provide longer propagation while maintaining sub-wavelength confinement.
In these waveguides modes are localized in both direction. But nevertheless the trade-off
remains since ohmic loss inside the metal is unavoidable.
A new design has been proposed based on the hybrid mode coupling. It utilizes metal cylinder
(CyPP) and a high index strip waveguide. Germanium is proposed to be a possible practical
material in order to achieve the required index, since inherent loss of Ge can be overcome as
reported in Ref. [38]. Fields are found to be greatly enhanced in the low index gap region
and this structure provides better confinement while maintaining the same propagation. It
has better figure of merit than the hybrid plasmonic waveguides in the current literature.
Propagation distance of over 240 micrometer with a modal size of 0.062 times the diffraction
limited area is calculated using the proposed structure. The mode area may reach 0.0016
times the diffraction limited area at a gap size of 2 nm while still maintaining propagation
around 15 micrometers. The decoupling separation needed between two parallel waveguide
is as small as 690 nm. It shows very slow group velocity and operates over a large frequency
bandwidth. The decoupling separation is relatively short which is suitable for high density
integration.
In the last chapter the phenomena of optical trapping is introduced and investigated in hybrid
67
68 Chapter 6. Conclusion
waveguides. Forces acting on the dielectric cores have been calculated using Maxwell’s stress
tensor. Hybrid nanowire waveguides provided high gradient force and capable of trapping
single nano particle with diameter of only few nanometers at low input optical power. The
novel structure is also tested in terms of optical force. Again it provided better performance
in terms of the magnitude of optical forces compare to hybrid silicon nanowire waveguides.
Hybrid plasmonic waveguides opens the opportunity to bridge the gap between photonics and
electronics. They offer the potential to combine high capacity photonic chips with high density
electronics circuits. Since our structure provides very high confinement with relatively longer
propagation, it can be served as the building block to construct optoelectronic circuits with
very small components such as swtiches, modulators, resonators and couplers. The extreme
field enhancement property can also be capitalized to many nonlinearity related applications
such as surface enhanced Raman scatterings (SERs). The enhanced optical trapping force
of the structure can be utilized in various optomechanical application e.g. nanoscale optical
tweezers.
The performance of the waveguide can be further improved by using a strip having even
higher index. Since the permittivity of the material need to be positive we may use the
very high index layered metamaterial proposed recently in Ref. [46] in place of the possible
Ge. Although by using the metamaterial structure we achieved extreme confinement, the
propagation and FOM degraded significantly because of the high loss of the metamaterial. If
we can make a metamaterial with very high index but with low loss, it can be used in our
waveguide to achieve better result.
Appendix A
Matlab script to calculate mode

area A3
x=slot200(:,1); %% input data imported from COMSOL

y=slot200(:,2); %% (x,y) = co-ordinate values
z=slot200(:,3); %% z = power density for each point
tri = delaunay(x,y);
% The integral under each triangle
x1 = x(tri(:,1));
x2 = x(tri(:,2));
x3 = x(tri(:,3));
y1 = y(tri(:,1));
y2 = y(tri(:,2));
y3 = y(tri(:,3));
vol=0;
vol = abs(sum(z(tri),2).*(x1.*y2 - x2.*y1+...

x2.*y3-x3.*y2+x3.*y1-x1.*y3)/6);
surf_int= sum(vol) % Surface integral of power density = total power
test=z(tri);
[sortedcol,sorter] = sort(test(:,1),’descend’);
tri = tri(sorter,:); % tri hold the index of the sorted power density
% The integral under each triangle
69
70 Appendix A. Matlab script to calculate mode area A3
x1 = x(tri(:,1));
x2 = x(tri(:,2));
x3 = x(tri(:,3));
y1 = y(tri(:,1));
y2 = y(tri(:,2));
y3 = y(tri(:,3));
vol=0;
i=0;
for (i=1:length(tri));
vol = vol+ abs(sum(z(tri(i,:)))*(x1(i)*y2(i)-x2(i)*y1(i)+...
x2(i)*y3(i)-x3(i)*y2(i)+x3(i)*y1(i)-x1(i)*y3(i))/6);
if vol>surf_int/2 break; % if power reaches the half of the total power break the loop.
end;
end; % ’i’ hold the index of the last element
test=z(tri);
for(p=1:length(test));
for(q=1:3);
if p<i test(p,q)=1; % index < i means the point is within
% the contour of half of the total power.
else test(p,q)=0; % outside the contour of half of the total power
end;
end;
end;
vol=0;
vol = abs(sum(test,2).*(x1.*y2-x2.*y1+...
x2.*y3-x3.*y2+x3.*y1-x1.*y3)/6);
A3= sum(vol) % the area holding half of the total power.

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List of Figures
2.1 Position of various materials in the − µ diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Planar waveguide geometry and propagation of waves in a cartesian coordinate

system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.3 Example of the occurrence of evanescent waves, by (a) total internal reflection
in dielectric when the angle of incidence is more than some critical angle, (b)
reflection for any angle of incidence when the material is metal. . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 Plot of equation (2.12) : wavenumber (k) surface [17] for different dimensional
waves in different materials, (a) 3D optical wave in dielectric, (b) 2D optical
wave in dielectric, (c) 2D optical wave in metal (ND), Ref. [18]. . . . . . . . . 8
2.5 Wavenumber (k) surface along with applied boundary condition for differ-
ent materials interfaces, (a) Total internal reflection at dielectric/dielectric,
(b)Reflection at dielectric/metal, (c) Surface plasmon polariton at dielectric/metal
interface, [18] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.6 Domain and coordinate considered for SPP propagation at a single interface. 10
2.7 Dispersion relation of a typical SPP confined by a Drude metal with negligible
damping frequency and air (blue curve) and silica (red curve) interface. The
dotted line is for imaginary part of β. There are three regions in this graph -
top left is (ω > ωp ) radiation region, curve lying to the right of the respective
light line are the bound mode region and in between them where β is purely
imaginary, is the frequency gap region. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.8 Dispertion relation of SPP confined by a Silver/Air (blue curve) and Sil-
ver/Silica interface (red curve) after considering damping. At surface plasmon
frequency propagating wave vector approaches a finite value in this case. . . . 14
2.9 Group velocity as a function of normalized frequency in the unit of c. Blue

curve for air and red curve for silica as dielectric. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.10 Electric field intensity enhancement at a metal surface compared to in free space. 16
75
76 List of Figures
2.11 (a,b) Wave number (kSP P ) surface with respect to permittivity of metal in
complex plane (a) Air-Metal, (b) Silica-Metal (c) Width of SPP (solid red
curve) with respect to the relative permittivity of lossless metal for d = 1.
Decay length in dielectric (D) (dotted blue curve) and metal (ND)(dash-dotted
green curve) are also shown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.12 Coordinate and geometry of 2D optical waveguides with double metal/dielectric

interface. The propagation is along x direction. (a) Metal film with dielectric
on both side, (b) Metal gap with dielectric between two metal slab. . . . . . . 19
2.13 Electric field distribution of gold film surrounded by air, film thickness h = 50
nm and operating at λ0 = 775nm. Perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) has
been applied to the side boundaries and scattering boundary condition is ap-
plied on top and bottom boundaries, while the propagation is at x direction.
(a) Long Range Ex (changes sign at the mid plane),(b) Long Range Ez (sym-
metric),(c) Short Range Ex (nearly constant in the metal),(d) Short Range Ez
(antisymmetric). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.14 Effective index and propagation length of long and short range SPP modes for
a gold film (m = −23.6+1.69i) surrounded by air at the excitation wavelength
of 775nm (adapted using Ref. [24] ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.15 Electric field distribution of two gold (Au) slab with an air gap of thickness
h = 50nm, (a) Gap-SPP Ex (odd symmetry/opposite sign across the gap), (b)
Gap-SPP Ez (have same sign across the gap). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1 Domain and geometry of a 3D two conductor slot waveguide along with 2D
cross-sectional view. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2 (a) Effective index of DMD structure as a function of the thickness of the metal
film, h (solid line),(b) Effective refractive index nef f of a silver-silica-silver or
MDM structure as a function of the width of gap region w, refractive index of
silica (broken line), (c) nef f of the fundamental edge mode (truncated Ag film)
as a function of thickness of the Ag film (solid line), index of silica (broken
line) (d) Power density distribution of truncated edge mode for a Ag film of
thickness h = 50nm at λ0 = 1.55µm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.3 (a) Relative permittivity of silver as a function of frequency using the Drude
model. (b) Ratio of imaginary and real part of the permittivity of silver as
function of frequency. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.4 (a) Dispersion relation of the fundamental mode when w, h = 50nm (b) Prop-
agation length as a function of wavelength for the same structure. . . . . . . 29
77
3.5 Power density profile of the fundamental mode when w, h = 50nm for different
wavelength, (a) λ0 = 0.6µm, (b)λ0 = 0.6µm,(c) λ0 = 1µm (telecommunication
wavelength), (d) λ0 = 10µm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.6 (a) Effective index nef f as function of slot width w for fixed film thickness
h = 50nm (solid line), the effective indices of the corresponding modes of the
simplified structure are also shown, (b) Dependence of propagation length Lp
on the width w, (c) Different effective mode area as a function of w. . . . . . 31
3.7 (a) Effective index as a function of film thickness h for fixed slot width, w =
50nm, indices of the corresponding MDM and DMD mode are also shown in
dotted line, (b) Propagation length as function of h, and (c) Effective modal
area (A1,2,3 as a function of h. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.8 Metal strip waveguide, (a) Geometry of the waveguide which is composed of
silver (Ag) strip on top of silver substrate and embedded in silica, (b) Power
density profile of the fundamental mode at λ0 = 1.55µm . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.9 (a) Propagation length of the strip waveguide as a function of wstrip (solid
line) for different gaps and the corresponding propagation length for the slot
waveguide (dotted line), (b) Modal area with respect to wstrip for the strip
(solid line) and corresponding modal area of the slot (dotted line), (c) Figure
of merit of strip (solid line) as a function of the wstrip and the corresponding
FOM of the slot (dotted line). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.10 Metal cylinder waveguide, (a) Geometry of the waveguide which is composed
of silver (Ag) nanowire embedded in silica, (b) Power density profile of the
fundamental mode at when d = 200nm at λ0 = 1.55µm, (c) Field enhancement
when d = 1000nm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3.11 (a) Effective refractive index nef f of the CyPP (cylinder plasmon polariton)
mode, (b) Propagation length Lp as a function of nanowire diameter d, (c)
Normalized modal area as a function of d using different definitions, (d) Figure
of merit of the CyPP mode with respect to the change of d. . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.12 (a) Effective index as function of Si waveguide width w, for different height
h. As the cross-sectional area increases the index approaches that of a SPP at
Si/Ag single interface, (b) Propagation length as a function of w for different
height h, (c) Normalized modal area, (d) Power density distribution, the mode
is well confined since the cross-section is around 0.03µm2 . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.13 FOM of the dielectric loaded SPP waveguide as a function of different cross-
sectional area of Si. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
78 List of Figures
3.14 (a) Cross-sectional geometry and coordinates of the hybrid dielectric nanowire
waveguide, (b) Effective index of the hybrid mode as a function of d and h,
(c) Propagation length as a function of (d,h), (d)-(f) Normalized modal area
according to different definitions as a function of (d,h), (d) A1 , (e) A2 , (f) A3 . 39
3.15 Power density profile of Si nanowire without the metal slab. Power is repealing
out of the cylinder as the diameter decreases. Below 200 nm power is mainly
in the low index region and effective index is close to that of the surrounding
low index dielectric (silica) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.16 (a) Energy density along y = −d/2 (dashed line in upper left inset) for different
values of h when d = 200 nm. There is a dip at x = 0 since power is entering in
the cylinder. (b) Energy density along x = 0 (dashed line in the inset), strong
field enhancement in the gap region. (c) Energy density distribution for (d,h)
= (200,5), field is strongly confined in the gap, (d) (d,h) = (400,5), power has
began to enter the large cylinder, (e)(d,h)=(400,10) even more power in the
cylinder for larger gap, (f) (d,h) = (400,50) almost all the power inside the
cylinder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.17 Hybridization of the modal character, maximum coupling between modes occur
when d is around 200 nm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.18 Figure of merit of the hybrid nanowire waveguide as function of d and h.

Definition using both A1 and A2 is shown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.19 (a) Cross-sectional geometry of the hybrid metal cap with rib structure (left),
when rib replaced with slab (right), (b) Effective index as function of the width
of the waveguide, (c) Power density distribution when (w,h) = (200,10). . . . 43
3.20 (a) Propagation length as a function of core width (w) for different h, (b)
Calculated normalized modal area as a function of w and h, (c) Energy density
in the middle of the silica layer along y and x axis respectively. . . . . . . . . 44
3.21 Graphical figure of merit : normalized propagation distance with respect to

normalized mode area for different silica thickness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
79
4.1 (a) Cross-sectional geometry and domain of the new hybrid plasmonic waveg-
uide. A metal cylindrical nanowire of permittivity m is placed on top of a high
index dielectric strip of permittivity s . They are separated from each other
by a nanoscale dielectric gap with permittivity d . The diameter of the metal
cylinder is d and width of the square strip is w. (b) Dispersion relation of
the fundamental mode when h = 10nm and w = 300nm. Dispersion relation
of hybrid Si nanowire waveguide (d, h) = (200, 10) is also shown along with
the silica light line. (c) Propagation length as function of wavelength when
(w, h) = (300, 10).(d) Effective index of the hybrid mode for different gap size
h and strip width w. Effective indices of pure dielectric strip mode (solid line)
and pure nanowire SPP mode (dotted line) is also shown. . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.2 Distribution of energy density for different wavelength for the reference struc-
ture (w, h) = (300, 10). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.3 (a) Normalized mode area as a function of strip width w for different values of
h, compared with the modal area of the pure dielectric strip mode (black solid
line). (b) Propagation length of the hybrid mode with respect to w for different
h. Propagation distance for pure SPP mode at Ag-silica and Ag-Ge interfaces
are also shown by upper dashed-dotted and lower dashed lines respectively.
(c) Modal area as a function of width when A1 is used as the definition. (d)
Propagation distance as a function the gap h for a fixed width w = 250nm. . 50
4.4 Power density profile of cylindrical Ag nanowire without the strip for different
diameter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.5 (a) Effect of nanowire diameter on the confinement for (w,h) = (300,5) and
(500,5). (b) Propagation length as function of the diameter, d. . . . . . . . . 52
4.6 Power density profile of the square shaped dielectric strip without the metal
nanowire. Power is repealing out of the strip as the width decreases. Below
150 nm power is mainly in the low index region and effective index is close to
that of the surrounding low index dielectric (silica). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.7 (a)Power density along y = −d/2 (as shown by the dotted line in the inset) for
different values of h when w = 250nm, (b) Power density profile along x = 0
(as shown by the dotted line in the inset), strong enhancement of energy in the
gap region, (c) Power density distribution for [w,h] = [200,2]. Because of the
narrow gap and smaller waveguide width (w) energy is strongly confined in the
gap region, (d) For [w,h] = [500,2]. Although the waveguide width increases
still there is high confinement. (e)For [w,h] = [10,200]. Still high confinement
because of smaller waveguide width. (f) For [w,h] = [20,400] power is leaking
out of the gap region toward the high index dielectric waveguide since both w
and h is large. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
80 List of Figures
4.8 Strip waveguide mode character as determined from |a+ (w, h)|2 . Maximum
coupling between the plasmonic (CyPP) and strip mode occurs near 180 nm.
In this regime both the mode consists equal portions of their strength and
highly confined gap mode can be achieved. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.9 (a,b) Distribution of the principle electrical field (Ey ) for even and odd super-
mode, when two waveguides are placed side by side, (a) Two parallel Hybrid
dielectric strip waveguide, (b) Two parallel Hybrid Si nanowire.(c) Calculated
coupling length as a function of waveguide width (w) for different separation
distances when gap width h = 2nm. (d) Calculated coupling length as a func-
tion of separation for both novel waveguide and the hybrid Si nanowire waveg-
uide. The strip based waveguide has significant higher coupling length. . . . . 56
4.10 Coupling length as a function of separation when waveguide width w = 200nm

for different gaps. The decoupled separation for the novel waveguide could be
as small as 690 nm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.11 (a) Graphical figure of merit : A plot of normalized propagation length Lp /λ0
versus normalized mode area A2 /A0 for different structures. For each trajectory
one structural parameter h = [2, 50]nm (for slot, w = [10, 200]) is continuously
varied. Width of the new waveguide structure w = 250nm, diameter of the
hybrid Si nanowire waveguide d = 200nm, and thickness of the metal film in
the slot waveguide h = 50nm, were kept fixed. (b) Similar trajectory when
normalized modal area A1 /A0 is used. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.1 (a) The effect of waveguide diameter d and air gap h on the values of the effec-
tive index of the hybrid plasmonic mode. Indices of pure Si cylinder and SPP
mode are shown as black solid line and broken line respectively. (b) Optical
force as a function of d and h acting on the Si cylinder without propagation loss. 60
5.2 (a) The average optical force with propagation loss acting on the Si cylinder
waveguide when the waveguide length is fixed at L = 50µm. (b) The averaged
optical force as a function of waveguide length L, when d = 250nm. . . . . . 61
5.3 (a) Power distribution profile for the hybrid mode when a 5nm diameter
nanoparticle is placed at different x position in the middle of the gap, (b)
Optical trapping force along x direction exerted on a single nanoparticle at
different position for different air gap, h under the Si nanowire of diameter
d = 220nm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.4 (a) The effect of waveguide diameter d and air gap h on the values of the
effective index of the hybrid plasmonic mode when the cylinder is composed of
Ge. Indices of pure Ge cylinder and SPP mode are shown as color solid and
broken line respectively. (b) Optical force as a function of d and h acting on
the Ge cylinder without propagation loss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
81
5.5 (a) The average optical force with propagation loss acting on the Ge cylinder
waveguide when the waveguide length is fixed at L = 50µm. (b) The averaged
optical force as a function of waveguide length L, when d = 200nm. . . . . . 64
5.6 (a) Power distribution profile for the hybrid mode when a 5nm diameter
nanoparticle is placed at different x position under the Ge cylinder of diam-
eter d = 220nm. (b) Optical trapping force along x direction exerted on a
single nanoparticle at different position for different air gap, h after using Ge
nanowire. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.7 (a) Optical force as a function of d and h acting on the Ag cylinder without
propagation loss. The force increases with increasing the diameter. The sign
of the force is positive which denotes repulsive force.(b) Optical trapping force
along x direction exerted on a single nanoparticle at different position for dif-
ferent air gap, h while the diameter of the Ag nanowire d = 220nm. Although
the force exerted on the metal nanowire was repulsive, still the nanoparticle
can be trapped the same way it did for Si or Ge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
5.8 (a) Optical force as a function of w and h acting on the Ge strip waveguide
without propagation loss,(b) Optical trapping force along x direction exerted
on a single nanoparticle at different position for different air gap, h above the
Ge strip of width (w = 250nm). The amplitude of the trapping force is higher
than that of the Si nanowire on metal substrate, (c) Power distribution profile
when a 5nm diameter polystyrene particle is placed at the middle of the gap
at different x positions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

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Plasmonic Waveguides : Design and

Master’s Degree Project

Plasmonic Waveguides : Design

Erasmus Mundus Master in Photonics

2 Principle of surface plasmon waveguiding 3

3 Comparison of different plasmonic waveguides 23

4 Waveguide design and analysis 47

A Matlab script to calculate mode area A3 69

capacitor-like energy storage of the hybrid mode [8].

An overview of the content of the chapters is given below,

Principle of surface plasmon

different properties of SPPs. We will concentrate on the underlying physical phenomena

2.2 The electromagnetic wave equation

Maxwell’s equations for macroscopic electromagnetism [12]:

in a nonmagnetic, isotropic, homogeneous medium, in the absence of external charge and

This is known by Helmholtz Equation where, k0 = ωc is the propagating wave vector in

with magnetic field components,

2.3 Propagating and evanescent waves

E(r, t) = E0 exp (−iωt) exp [i(kx x + kz z)] (2.9)

polarization in order to satisfy Coulomb’s law.

2.4 Diffraction limit and low dimensional optical waves

2.4.1 Diffraction limit in 3D waves

2.4.2 Diffraction limit in 2D waves

2.5 Surface plasmon polariton

2.5.1 Dispersion relation of SPP at a single interface

Hy (z) = A exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.16a)

Here, A is a constant and, q

for z < 0 similarly,

Here B is another constant and, q

Ek1 = Ek2 (2.20b)

and from second boundary condition (continuity of Ex ),

Ey (z) = A exp(iβx) exp(−K1 z) (2.26a)

Ey (z) = B exp(iβx) exp(K2 z) (2.27a)

2.5.2 Different properties of surface plasmon

Field property and enhancement

Diffraction Limit of SPP

2.6 Principle of 2D optical waveguides

2.6.1 Film SPP modes

Let us consider the SPP modes in the symmetric dielectric-metal-dielectric configuration as

Conventionally Ez -symmetric configuration is known as the symmetric SPP mode (exhibit

and simplification after assuming very thin films,

2.6.2 Gap SPP modes

Simplification after assuming sufficiently small gap, h → 0,

Comparison of different plasmonic

propagation. We used a commercial package, the RF module of COMSOL Multiphysics for

3.1 Definition of confinement, propagation length and figure

3.1.1 Effective modal area

Here, W (r) is the energy density,

We can iteratively solve the problem by using,

f (r) = 0, if w(r) < W0 ,

3.1.2 Propagation length

Although plasmonic structures provide extremely localized electromagnetic fields there is

3.1.3 Figure of merit

3.2 Slot waveguides

3.2.1 Simplified geometries

3.2.2 Characteristic of symmetric slot waveguide

propagating modes over the entire frequency range.

Propagation length, Lp (µm)

3.3 Metal strip waveguides

3.4 Metal cylinder waveguides (CyPPs)

This structure is composed of a metal (silver) cylinder embedded in dielectric (silica) as

(a) (b) (c)

vol = abs(sum(z(tri),2).(x1.y2 - x2.*y1+...

2.1 Position of various materials in the − µ diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4