Semiconducting polymer waveguides for end-fired ultra-fast optical amplifiers

Enhancing surface plasmon leakage at the metal/semiconductor interface: towards increased light outcoupling efficiency in organic optoelectronics

The light outcoupling efficiency of organic light-emitting optoelectronic devices is severely limited by excitation of tightly bound surface plasmon polaritons at the metal electrodes. We present a theoretical study of an organic semiconductor-silver-SiO(2) waveguide and demonstrate that by simple tuning of metal film thickness and the emission regime of the organic semiconductor, a significant fraction of surface plasmon polariton mode amplitude is leaked into the active semiconductor layer, thereby decreasing the amount of optical energy trapped by the metal. At visible wavelengths, mode leakage increases by factors of up to 3.8 and 88 by tuning metal film thickness and by addition of gain, respectively.

Plasmonic amplification with ultra-high optical gain at room temperature

Nanoplasmonic devices are promising for next generation information and communication technologies because of their capability to confine light at subwavelength scale and transport signals with ultrahigh speeds. However, ohmic losses are inherent to all plasmonic devices so that further development of integrated plasmonics requires efficient in situ loss compensation of signals with a wavelength and polarization of choice. Here we show that CdSe nanobelt/Al₂O₃/Ag hybrid plasmonic waveguides allow for efficient broadband loss compensation of propagating hybrid plasmonic signals of different polarizations using an optical pump and probe technique. With an internal gain coefficient of 6755 cm⁻¹ at ambient condition, almost 100% of the propagation loss of TM-dominant plasmonic signals is compensated. From comparison with a similar photonic structure we attribute the fast-increasing gain at low pump intensity in hybrid plasmonic waveguides to the transfer across the metal-oxide-semiconductor interface of ‘hot' electrons photogenerated by the pump light.