Tradeoff between mode confinement, loss, and cross-talk, for dielectric and metal slot waveguides

• Slot waveguides formed in high-index dielectrics or metals provide strong field enhancement in the slot region. When filled with nonlinear or lasing materials, they have the potential for highly efficient components for intensity dependent signal processing in integrated photonic circuits. In view of the increasing demand for high integration, metal slot waveguides have the great advantage of sub-diffraction mode confinement but they suffer from serious transmission loss. The total lateral field extent in their low-loss dielectric counterparts is, in turn, diffraction limited. Considering those tradeoffs, we show that at 24dB/ÎŒm cross-talk and the attenuation length of at least 5ÎŒm, gold slot waveguides can be spaced only ca 3.5 times denser than slot waveguides in silicon.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Elektroteknik och elektronik -- Telekommunikation (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering -- Telecommunications (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Attenuation lengths; Diffraction limited; High-index; Integrated photonic circuit; Intensity-dependent; Lasing materials; Low loss; Slot waveguide; Strong field enhancement; Sub-diffraction; Transmission loss

Crosstalk; Dielectric materials; Diffraction; Signal processing

Waveguides

Photonics

Fotonik

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)