Efficient Directional Coupling between Silicon and Copper Plasmonic Nanoslot Waveguides: toward Metal−Oxide−Silicon Nanophotonics

• Published in: Nano letters Vol. 10; no. 8; pp. 2922 - 2926
• Main Authors: Delacour, Cécile, Blaize, Sylvain, Grosse, Philippe, Fedeli, Jean Marc, Bruyant, Aurélien, Salas-Montiel, Rafael, Lerondel, Gilles, Chelnokov, Alexei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Chemical Society 11-08-2010
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Collective excitations (including excitons, polarons, plasmons and other charge-density excitations); Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties; Electronic structure and electrical properties of surfaces, interfaces, thin films and low-dimensional structures; Electronics; Engineering Sciences; Exact sciences and technology; Molecular electronics, nanoelectronics; Optics; Photonic; Physics; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Surface and interface electron states; Surface plasmon polariton; metallic slot waveguides; silicon photonics; integrated optics; plasmonics; codirectional couplers; Integrated optics; Optical coupling; Large scale integration; Microelectronics; Gallium phosphide; Nanoelectronics; Nanophotonics; Optical confinement; Silicon oxides; Waveguides; Plasmons; Silicon; Copper
• ISSN: 1530-6984; 1530-6992
• DOI: 10.1021/nl101065q

Coupling plasmonics and silicon photonics is the best way to bridge the size gap between macroscopic optics and nanodevices in general and especially nanoelectronic devices. We report on the realization of key blocks for future plasmonic planar integrated optics, nano-optical couplers, and nanoslot waveguides that are compatible both with the silicon photonics and the CMOS microelectronics. Copper-based devices provide for very efficient optical coupling, unexpectedly low propagation losses and a broadband sub-50 nm optical confinement. The fabrication in a standard frontline microelectronic facilities hints broad possibilities of hybrid opto-electronic very large scale integration.