Semiconductor surface plasmon sources

Complete design of a fully integrated graphene-based compact plasmon coupler for the mid-infrared

A fully integrated waveguide-based, efficient surface plasmon coupler composed of a realistic non-tapered dielectric waveguide with graphene patches and sheet is designed and optimized for the infrared. The coupling efficiency can reach nearly 80% for a coupler as short as 700 nm for an operating wavelength of 12 μm. This work is carried out using rigorous numerical models based on the finite element method taking into account 2D materials as surface conductivities. The key numerical results are supported by physical arguments based on modal approach or resonance condition.

Charge accumulation resulting in metallization of II-VI semiconductor (ZnX X = O, S, Se) films neighboring polar liquid crystal molecules and their surface plasmonic response in the visible region

The surfaces of some IIB-VI semiconductors (ZnX, X = O, S, Se) are metallized by neighboring highly polar and atomically vertically aligned (VA) liquid crystal (LC) molecules. Owing to polar catastrophe, the charge carriers swarm in an extremely thin layer and the density can achieve 4.86 × 1028 m-3 close to the LC layer, which can be regarded as a 2-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). Using density functional theory (DFT), it was found that the dielectric functions of the modified layer become negative in the visible region. This indicates the semiconductor/LC platform is an ideal active plasmonic candidate, apart from the lossy metal constituents. Experimentally, after mediation with phase gratings written in the LC system, surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) can be excited at the semiconductor surface and localized charges are gathered in an adjacent LC layer. With the help of the enhanced static electric field from the metallic surface, significantly more 2D diffraction orders in many rows and columns and a huge energy transfer between the laser beams and SPPs was observed, which is consistent with the metallization results and the bidirectional coupling between the SPPs and incident lights. The generalization of the II-VI semiconductors means the system has great promise for use in practical applications owing to the ultra-low loss. The novel insights regarding this combination with liquid crystals will be beneficial for real-time holographic displays and the study of tunable epsilon near zero points.

Surface plasmon polariton beams from an electrically excited plasmonic crystal

Surface plasmon polariton (SPP) beams with an in-plane angular spread of 8° are produced by electrically exciting a 2D plasmonic crystal using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The plasmonic crystal consists of a gold nanoparticle (NP) array on a thin gold film on a glass substrate and it is the inelastic tunnel electrons (IET) from the STM that provide a localized and spectrally broadband SPP source. Surface waves on the gold film are shown to be essential for the coupling of the local, electrical excitation to the extended NP array, thus leading to the creation of SPP beams. A simple model of the scattering of SPPs by the array is used to explain the origin and direction of the generated SPP beams under certain conditions. In order to take into account the broadband spectrum of the source, calculations realized using finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods are obtained, showing that bandgaps for SPP propagation exist for certain wavelengths and indicating how changing the pitch of the NP array may enhance the SPP beaming effect.

Tunable Surface Plasmon and Phonon Polariton Interactions for Moderately Doped Semiconductor Surfaces

Spatial charge distribution for biased semiconductors fundamentally differs from metals since they can allow inhomogeneous charge distributions due to penetration of the electric field, as observed in the classical Schottky junctions. Similarly, the electrostatics of the dielectric/semiconductor interface can lead to a carrier depletion or accumulation in the semiconductor side when under applied bias. In this study, we demonstrate that the inhomogeneous carrier accumulation in a moderately p-doped GaAs-dielectric interface can be tailored for tunable plasmonics by an external voltage. Solving Maxwell's equations in the doped GaAs-dielectric stack, we investigate the tunability of the surface plasmon and phonon polaritons' interaction via an external bias. The plasmonic mode analysis of such an interface reveals interesting dispersion curves for surface plasmon and phonon polariton interactions that are not possible in metals. We show that the plasmon dispersion curve can be engineered through an external bias using the inherent properties of the p-doped GaAs- dielectric interface.

Highly efficient tunable and localized on-chip electrical plasmon source using protruded metal-insulator-metal structure

A compact and highly efficient tunable and localized source of propagating surface plasmon-polaritons is proposed based on a protruded metal-insulator-metal (pMIM) structure. The protrusion along a segment of the pMIM forms a nanometer gap and allows a low voltage bias to generate a localized tunneling current. The tunneling current excited plasmons can be fully coupled to the metal-insulator-metal (MIM) waveguiding segment of the pMIM without leakage and propagate a long distance as the gap in the MIM waveguiding segment is much larger than the gap in the protruded segment of the pMIM. Eigenmode and numerical analyses show that by using MIM structures as a benchmark, the pMIM structure enhances the total amount of average power that is transferred from the tunneling current into the excitation of intrinsic eigenmodes of the MIM waveguiding segment. Depending on the magnitude of the applied voltage bias, the pMIM structure supports single, dual and multi modes for a typical Au-SiO₂-Au design with a 500 nm-thick SiO₂. Among all excited modes, the single mode operation allows highly efficient excitation of long travelling surface plasmon-polaritons (SPPs) of up to 30 µm. The electrical excitation of SPPs using pMIM structures opens up the possibility of integrating plasmon sources into nanoscale optoelectronic circuits to facilitate on-chip data communications.

Flexible coherent control of plasmonic spin-Hall effect

The surface plasmon polariton is an emerging candidate for miniaturizing optoelectronic circuits. Recent demonstrations of polarization-dependent splitting using metasurfaces, including focal-spot shifting and unidirectional propagation, allow us to exploit the spin degree of freedom in plasmonics. However, further progress has been hampered by the inability to generate more complicated and independent surface plasmon profiles for two incident spins, which work coherently together for more flexible and tunable functionalities. Here by matching the geometric phases of the nano-slots on silver to specific superimpositions of the inward and outward surface plasmon profiles for the two spins, arbitrary spin-dependent orbitals can be generated in a slot-free region. Furthermore, motion pictures with a series of picture frames can be assembled and played by varying the linear polarization angle of incident light. This spin-enabled control of orbitals is potentially useful for tip-free near-field scanning microscopy, holographic data storage, tunable plasmonic tweezers, and integrated optical components.

Small divergence substrate emitting quantum cascade laser by subwavelength metallic grating

Metallic periodic structure in subwavelength scale offers an exciting way to couple light into surface plasmons (SPs), thus manipulating the properties of near-field optics. We show that subwavelength metallic grating (SMG) defined on the substrate side of substrate emitting quantum cascade lasers enables far-field improvement in mid-infrared spectrum. The SMG is designed to tailor the interaction of SPs with single mode transverse magnetic light. The experiment results are in good agreement with the simulated model. A far-field full width at half maximum (FWHM) divergence angle of 3.9 ° in the direction perpendicular to the laser waveguide layers is obtained, improved by a factor of 8.5 compared with traditional surface emitting device.

Planar integrated metasurfaces for highly-collimated terahertz quantum cascade lasers

We report planar integration of tapered terahertz (THz) frequency quantum cascade lasers (QCLs) with metasurface waveguides that are designed to be spoof surface plasmon (SSP) out-couplers by introducing periodically arranged SSP scatterers. The resulting surface-emitting THz beam profile is highly collimated with a divergence as narrow as ~4° × 10°, which indicates a good waveguiding property of the metasurface waveguide. In addition, the low background THz power implies a high coupling efficiency for the THz radiation from the laser cavity to the metasurface structure. Furthermore, since all the structures are in-plane, this scheme provides a promising platform where well-established surface plasmon/metasurface techniques can be employed to engineer the emitted beam of THz QCLs controllably and flexibly. More importantly, an integrated active THz photonic circuit for sensing and communication applications could be constructed by incorporating other optoelectronic devices such as Schottky diode THz mixers, and graphene modulators and photodetectors.

Effect of dielectric cladding on active plasmonic device based on InGaAsP multiple quantum wells

The Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) planar waveguide with amorphous silicon (α-Si) cladding is studied, for empowering the device modulation response. The device is fabricated with multiple quantum wells (MQWs) as the gain media electrically pumped for compensating SPP propagation loss on Au film waveguide. The SPP propagation greatly benefits from the modal gain for the long-range hybrid mode, which is optimized by adopting an α-Si cladding layer accompanied with minimal degradation of mode confinement. The proposed structure presented more sensitive response to electrical manipulation than the one without cladding in experiment.

Plasmon scattering from holes: from single hole scattering to Young's experiment

In this paper, the scattering of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) into photons at holes is investigated. A local, electrically excited source of SPPs using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) produces an outgoing circular plasmon wave on a thick (200 nm) gold film on glass containing holes of 250, 500 and 1000 nm diameter. Fourier plane images of the photons from hole-scattered plasmons show that the larger the hole diameter, the more directional the scattered radiation. These results are confirmed by a model where the hole is considered as a distribution of horizontal dipoles whose relative amplitudes, directions, and phases depend linearly on the local SPP electric field. An SPP-Young's experiment is also performed, where the STM-excited SPP wave is incident on a pair of 1 μm diameter holes in the thick gold film. The visibility of the resulting fringes in the Fourier plane is analyzed to show that the polarization of the electric field is maintained when SPPs scatter into photons. From this SPP-Young's experiment, an upper bound of ≈200 nm for the radius of this STM-excited source of surface plasmon polaritons is determined.

Electrical source of surface plasmon polaritons based on hybrid Au-GaAs QW structures

In this paper, the electrical excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) based on a hybrid metal-semiconductor quantum well (QW) structure is investigated by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations and experiments. The metal-QW hybrid structure is made of a metal grating structure deposited on a semiconductor QW with small separation between them. When electron-hole pairs are excited using current injection into the QW, SPPs are generated and coupled out by a metal grating. The spectral and imaging measurements were performed to confirm the electrical excitation of SPPs. The hybrid structure could serve as a plasmonic source for integrated plasmonic circuits.

A double-strip plasmonic waveguide coupled to an electrically driven nanowire LED

We demonstrate the efficient integration of an electrically driven nanowire (NW) light source with a double-strip plasmonic waveguide. A top-down-fabricated GaAs NW light-emitting diode (LED) is placed between two straight gold strip waveguides with the gap distance decreasing to 30 nm at the end of the waveguide and operated by current injection through the p-contact electrode acting as a plasmonic waveguide. Measurements of polarization-resolved images and spectra show that the light emission from the NW LED was coupled to a plasmonic waveguide mode, propagated through the waveguide, and was focused onto a subwavelength-sized spot of surface plasmon polaritons at the tapered end of the waveguide. Numerical simulation agreed well with these experimental results, confirming that a symmetric plasmonic waveguide mode was excited on the top surface of the waveguide. Our demonstration of a plasmonic waveguide coupled to an electrically driven NW LED represents important progress toward further miniaturization and practical implementation of ultracompact photonic integrated circuits.

In situ generation of surface plasmon polaritons using a near-infrared laser diode

We demonstrate a semiconductor laser-based approach which enables plasmonic active devices in the telecom wavelength range. We show that optimized laser structures based on tensile-strained InGaAlAs quantum wells-coupled to integrated metallic patternings-enable surface plasmon generation in an electrically driven compact device. Experimental evidence of surface plasmon generation is obtained with the slit-doublet experiment in the near-field, using near-field scanning optical microscopy measurements.

Short-range surface plasmon propagation supported by stimulated amplification using electrical injection

We have investigated the propagation of the long-range mode (LRSP) and the short-range mode (SRSP) surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) along the waveguide made from Au film and quantum wells (QWs) gain medium. Influenced by the gain spectral nonuniformity, the SRSP showed narrower spectrum than the LRSP in output, denoting that the SRSP propagation was supported by stimulated amplification (SA) in electrically-pumped QWs. An SRSP output power as large as 1.6 times of that of the LRSP was obtained over a travelling distance of 80 μm. The mechanism of SA-supported SRSP propagation can be adopted for electrical modulation of SPPs.

Design of an integrated coupler for the electrical generation of surface plasmon polaritons

Recently a surface plasmon polariton (SPP) source based on an electrically operated semiconductor laser has been demonstrated. Here we present a numerical investigation of the light-SPP coupling process involved in the device. The problem consists in the coupling via a diffraction grating between a dielectric waveguide mode--the laser mode--and a SPP mode. The issue of the coupling efficiency is discussed, and the dependence on various geometrical parameters of both the grating and the dielectric waveguide is studied in detail. A maximum coupling efficiency of ≈24% is obtained at telecom wavelengths, which could lead to a high-power integrated SPP source when combined to a laser medium.

A room-temperature semiconductor spaser operating near 1.5 μm

Room temperature spasing of surface plasmon polaritons at 1.46 μm wavelength has been demonstrated by sandwiching a gold-film plasmonic waveguide between optically pumped InGaAs quantum-well gain media. The spaser exhibits gain narrowing, the expected transverse-magnetic polarization, and mirror feedback provided by cleaved facets in a 1-mm long cavity fabricated with a flip-chip approach. The 1.06-μm pump-threshold of ~60 kW/cm2 is in good agreement with calculations. The architecture is readily adaptable to all-electrical operation on an integrated microchip.