Unidirectional coupling and efficient detection of near-infrared surface plasmon polaritons for on-chip optoelectronic interconnection

Abstract

Plasmonic interconnection is one kind of the possible methods to construct next-generation optoelectronic integrated circuits. In this paper, the plasmonic interconnection device based on Ge in infrared band is constructed, through efficient electron-hole pair generation, the device can achieve high photocurrent response (0.25A/W). Because of the low plasmon coupling efficiency of the conventional basic periodic gratings, this paper optimized the design of the coupling structure and improved the coupling efficiency by 4 times through constructing a binary Bragg/periodic grating coupler which can realize unidirectional plasmon coupling with a simulated extinction ratio of 12.5 dB. The devices can be easily fabricated by single-step electron beam lithography and lift-off process. The experimental results verified a 3.5 times improvement in the SPPs current of the designed plasmonic interconnection device, which provides a technical path to realize efficient plasmon transmission and detection for on-chip optoelectronic interconnection.