A comparative study of dielectric Materials and metals as Nanoplasmonic waveguides

Abstract

The ability of Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) to overcome the diffraction limit has made it a field of great research interest. It is being predicted that next generation microchips will be produced using plasmonics-electronics hybrid technology. This will solve the RC delay issue of current electronic microchips and scaling issue of conventional integrated photonic devices. However, there are some shortcomings of SPP which are higher losses in the metallic layer and less propagation distance. Using current technology, propagation distance of SPP cannot exceed the benchmark of micrometers. The objective of this thesis is study the power transmission characteristics of different kinds of waveguides for several materials and analyze their performance using the FDTD method. SPP propagation characteristics through different optical nanostructures having different geometries have been investigated to analyze the performance of the materials. Waveguides with different kinds of bends have been investigated and compared with each other to see the effects of these bends on the efficiency of power transmission. All of the simulations have been done for a range of signal wavelength extending beyond the visible light spectrum.