2022 IEEE 19th International Conference on Smart Communities: Improving Quality of Life Using ICT, IoT and AI

(HONET)
(Short Paper)
2022 IEEE 19th International Conference on Smart Communities: Improving Quality of Life Using ICT, IoT and AI (HONET) | 978-1-6654-6197-9/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/HONET56683.2022.10019085

Design and Analysis of a Novel Plasmonic Power

Splitter Based on an Air-Slot Coupler
Rami A. Wahsheh
Communications Engineering Department
Princess Sumaya University for Technology
Amman, Jordan
r.wahsheh@psut.edu.jo

Abstract—Power splitters are used to achieve high density and
cost effective optical integrated circuits. Based on an air-slot
coupler, we introduce a plasmonic power splitter that achieves
high coupling efficiency over a broad frequency range which
entails lower-precision fabrication processes to align its two-
branches to the conventional dielectric waveguide (CDW). We
found that tapering the width of the two CDWs not only increases
the coupling efficiency into and out of the MDM plasmonic
waveguides, but also reduces the oscillations in the measured
transmitted coupling efficiency into the output CDW and
increases the fabrication tolerance when placing the two MDM
branches between the two CDWs. Our results show that the
proposed power splitter has potential applications in the optical
data communications.
Keywords—integrated optics devices, waveguides, surface
plasmons.
I. INTRODUCTION
Power splitters are considered essential components in
optical data communications and optical interconnects to
achieve high signal processing speed and densely photonic
integrated circuits [1-3]. Different power splitter designs have
been proposed between a conventional dielectric waveguide
(CDW) and metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) plasmonic
waveguides [4-8]. The proposed splitters are either difficult to
fabricate or suffer from low coupling efficiency. To overcome
these problems, in this research work we propose a plasmonic
splitter based on an air-slot coupler (ASC) that we recently
designed in [9]. The ASC is of a length of 36 nm and a width of
40 nm. The ASC was used to couple light from a 300 nm-wide
CDW into a 40 nm-wide MDM plasmonic waveguide. In this
research work, we continue with the same types and dimensions
of waveguides used in [9] and perform two-dimensional finite-
difference-time-domain simulations to design two power
splitters. The metal losses are included in our numerical results.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: in
Section 2, we show how the proposed two power splitters are
designed by determining the separation distance between the
two MDM branches in addition to determining the length of
those two branches. In Section 3, we investigate the spectrum
response of the proposed designs. In Section 4, we investigate
the alignment tolerance of the two MDM plasmonic waveguides
with respect to the center of the dielectric waveguide. Finally, in
Section 5, we provide conclusions.
II. SCHEMATICS OF THE PROPOSED TWO PLASMONIC
POWER SPLITTERS
Figure 1 shows the schematics of the proposed two
plasmonic power splitters with their field distributions that show
that high coupling efficiency is achieved for each design at the
optimum dimensions found in this research work. The design of
splitter #1 is shown in Fig. 1(a), the width of the CDW is tapered
from 300 nm to 360 nm over a length of 360 nm so that the
coupling efficiency into and out of the ASC would increase. The
design of splitter #2 is shown in Fig. 1(c), the width of the CDW
is kept the same at 300 nm. In each design, the incident light in
the input CDW is equally split into each branch of the MDM
plasmonic waveguides and is then recombined at the output
CDW. The width of each branch is 40 nm and is terminated from
each side by the ASCs and CDWs.
To design the two plasmonic power splitters #1 and #2, we
need to determine the optimum value of the separation distance
between the two MDM branches, S, in addition to that of the
length of the branch, LMDM. First, LMDM is kept at 300 nm and S
is changed from 0 nm to 4000 nm in steps of 10 nm and at each
step, the transmission coupling efficiency (TCE) into the output
CDW is measured (see Fig. 2(a)). As shown in Fig. 2(a), the
maximum TCE of ~84% with zero back reflection power (BRP)
for splitter #1 occurs when S is equal to 150 nm. For splitter #2,
the maximum TCE of 81% with zero BRP occurs when S is
equal to 160 nm. Comparing the results of both designs, there is
no coupling into the two MDM branches when S is greater than
270 nm for splitter #1 and greater than 220 nm for splitter #2,
the reason for this is that there is no mode overlap between the
mode supported by the two branches and that of the CDW.
Second, to find LMDM for the proposed splitters #1 and #2, S is
kept at 150 nm for the former one and at 160 for the latter one,
then LMDM is changed from 100 nm to 2000 nm in steps of 20 nm
and at each step, the TCE into the output CDW is measured (see
Fig. 2(b)). As shown in Fig. 2(b), the maximum TCE of ~85%
and ~81% with zero BRP occurs when LMDM is equal to 240 nm
and 320 nm for splitters #1 and #2, respectively. The decrease
in the amplitude of the measured TCE as LMDM increases is due
to the metallic interactions. The oscillations in the measured
TCE is due to the Fabry-Perot cavity-like structure. This
analysis shows that the design of splitter #1 is better than that of
splitter #2. Splitter #1 achieves not only better coupling
efficiency into and out of the MDM plasmonic waveguides, but
also reduces the oscillations in the measured TCE as a function
of LMDM.

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University
 2022 IEEE 19th International Conference on Smart Communities: Improving Quality of Life Using ICT, IoT and AI
(HONET)

a) Si b)
Ag

Air
36 nm
40 nm
LMDM
S

360 nm
360 nm

300 nm

c) Si d)

Ag

Air
36 nm
40 nm
LMDM
S

360 nm

300 nm

Fig. 1. (a) Schematics of the proposed plasmonic power splitter #1. (b) Field distributions of the coupled light in splitter #1 at 1550 nm when S=150 nm and
LMDM=240 nm. (c) Schematics of the proposed plasmonic power splitter #2. (d) Field distributions of the coupled light in splitter #2 at 1550 nm when S=160 nm and
LMDM=320 nm.

a) b)

Fig. 2. The TCE and BRP for the two plasmonic power splitters #1 and #2 as a function of: (a) the separation distance, S, between the two MDM branches when
LMDM=300 nm, and (b) the length, LMDM, of the two MDM branches when S=150 nm for the former one and S=160 nm for the latter one.

Fig. 3. The spectrum of the proposed two power splitters #1 and #2 in this research work and the spectrum of the two designs that were proposed in [9].

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 2022 IEEE 19th International Conference on Smart Communities: Improving Quality of Life Using ICT, IoT and AI
(HONET)
Fig. 4. The TCE as a function of the misalignment distance, d, between the position of the MDM waveguides and the center of the CDW.
III. TRANSMISSION ANALYSIS OF THE TWO PROPOSED
POWER SPLITTERS
Figure 3 shows the spectrum of the proposed plasmonic
power splitters #1 and #2 when S=150 nm for the former one
and S=160 nm for the latter one at LMDM=740 nm for both
splitters. The length 740 nm is chosen in order to compare the
spectrum of our proposed two power splitters (which has two
MDM waveguides) with that of the two designs proposed in
[9] (which have one MDM plasmonic waveguide). The length
of the MDM waveguide in [9] is 740 nm which represents the
second peak of the TCE as a function of LMDM. The
wavelength varies from 900 nm to 2400 nm in steps of 25 nm
and at each step, the TCE is measured. We found that using
two MDM plasmonic waveguides achieves better mode
matching with higher TCE than that measured using one
MDM plasmonic waveguide over a broad spectrum range.
This high TCE is significant especially when sharp 90-degree
bend interconnection is needed between two CDWs.
IV. ALIGNMENT TOLERANCE ANALYSIS OF THE TWO
PROPOSED POWER SPLITTERS
The location of the MDM waveguide with respect to the
center of the CDW is critical because the mode overlap in the
CDW and that in each MDM waveguide is what determines
the coupling efficiency between them. The focused ion beam
(FIB) is used to define the MDM waveguides in addition to
ASC. To show how critical placing the MDM waveguides is
with respect to the center of the CDW, we study the effect of
shifting both MDM waveguides to the right hand side as a
function of the displacement, d. The separation distance
between the two MDM waveguides is kept the same while
shifting both MDM waveguides. For splitter #1 (as shown in
Fig. 4), the TCE decreases from ~85% to ~56% as d increases
from 0 nm to 60 nm (the left MDM waveguide is closer to the
center of the CDW and the right MDM is at the edge of the
tapered CDW), then the TCE increases to reach ~67% when
d=90 nm (the left MDM waveguide is at the center of the
CDW and the right MDM is 30 nm out of the tapered CDW),
after that the TCE decreases to reach zero when d=250 nm
(the left MDM waveguide is at the edge of the CDW and the
right MDM has no overlap with the CDW). For splitter #2 (as
shown in Fig. 4), the TCE decreases from ~81% to ~35% as d
increases from 0 nm to 30 nm (the left MDM waveguide is
closer to the center of the CDW and the right MDM is at the
edge of the tapered CDW), then the TCE increases to reach
~50% when d=105 nm (the left MDM waveguide is at the
center of the CDW and the right MDM has no overlap with
Authorized licensed use limited to: Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Downloaded on May 09,2023 at 09:36:35 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
the CDW), after that the TCE decreases to reach zero when
d=230 nm (the left MDM waveguide is at the edge of the
CDW and the right MDM has no overlap with the CDW). This
analysis shows that splitter #1 achieves better alignment
tolerance when placing the two MDM waveguides with
respect to the center of CDW than splitter #2.
V. CONCLUSIONS
Ultra short power splitters based on an air-slot-coupler
(ASC) have been proposed and numerically investigated
using the finite-difference-time-domain method. We showed
the design of two plasmonic power splitters, one with tapering
the conventional dielectric waveguides (CDWs) and the other
one without tapering the CDWs. The two metal-dielectric-
metal (MDM) plasmonic waveguides are sandwiched
between two CDWs and terminated by ASC from each side.
We found that tapering the two CDWs has many benefits in
the proposed design. It increases the coupling efficiency into
and out of the MDM waveguides, reduces the oscillations in
the measured transmission coupling efficiency, and reduces
the need for high precision fabrication techniques to place the
MDM waveguides with respect to the center of the CDW.
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