Recent advances in Hybrid Plasmonic Circuits for Data Communications (Invited paper)
Amr S. Helmy1
1 The Edward S. Rogers Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, 10 King’s College Road, Toronto, ON M5S 3G4, Canada
e-mail: a.helmy@utoronto.ca
ABSTRACT
I plan to discuss a novel class of nanoscale devices that address unmet performance demands for applications in data communications [1-6]. The performance of emerging generations of high-speed, integrated electronic circuits is increasingly dictated by interconnect density and latency as well as by power consumption. To alleviate these limitations, data communications using photons has been deployed, where photonic circuits and devices are integrated on platforms compatible with conventional electronic technologies. Within the dominant platform; namely Si, dielectric waveguides confine light via total internal reflection. This imposes bounds on minimizing device dimensions and density of integration. Those bounds arise due to the diffraction limit and the cross-coupling between neighbouring waveguides. Nanoscale Plasmonic waveguides provide the unique ability to confine light within a few nanometers and allow for near perfect transmission through sharp bends as well as efficient light distribution between orthogonally intersecting junctions. With these structures as a building block, new levels of optoelectronic integration and performance metrics for athermal transceivers with achievable bandwidths in excess of 500 Gbps as will be overviewed in this talk. In addition, opportunities for the role that 2D materials may pay in propelling these record performance metrics even further will be projected.
Keywords: Plasmonics, Optical transceivers, Optical interconnects, Integration, High speed optical links.
Recent advances in Hybrid Plasmonic Circuits for Data Communications
High-sensitivity interferometric sensors on Si3N4 platform using Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP)-based transducers
A. Manolis1, E. Chatzianagnostou1, G. Dabos1, N. Pleros1, B. Chmielak2, A.L. Giesecke2, C. Porschatis2, P. J. Cegielski2, L. Markey3, J.C. Weeber3, A. Dereux3 and D. Tsiokos1,4
1 Department of Informatics – Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
2 AMO GmbH, Advanced Microelectronic Center Aachen (AMICA), Otto-Blumenthal-Strasse, Aachen, Germany
3 Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne, CNRS-Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France
4 bialoom Ltd, 72, 28th Octovriou Avenue, Office 301, Engomi, 2414 Nicosia, Cyprus
e-mail: athanasm@csd.auth.gr
ABSTRACT
In this work, we report an interferometric plasmo-photonic sensor based on Si3N4 photonic waveguides and gold (Au) Surface Plasmon Polariton (SPP) stripe waveguides. The proposed approach exhibits bulk sensitivity up to 1930 nm/RIU, holding promise for compact, ultra-sensitive interferometric sensing devices. We also evince experimentally that the proposed plasmo-photonic waveguide employed at the interferometer sensing arm can be fabricated using Aluminum (Al) instead of gold, demonstrating the first step towards fully CMOS compatible plasmo-photonic interferometric sensors.
Keywords: refractive index sensor, plasmonic stripes, silicon nitride, photonic integrated circuits, CMOS metals.
Silicon photonics ionic sensor enabled by hybrid integrated 2D plasmonic MoO3
Guanghui Ren, Baoyue Zhang, Markus Knoerzer, Arnan Mitchell, Jianzhen Ou
Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, School of Engineering,
RMIT University P.O. Box 2462, Melbourne VIC 3001, Australia
e-mail: Guanghui.ren@rmit.edu.au
ABSTRACT
Silicon photonics has demonstrated great potential in ultra-sensitive biochemical sensing. However, it is challenging for such sensors to detect small ions which are also of great importance in many biochemical processes. Here, we introduce a silicon photonic ion sensor enabled by an ionic dopant-driven plasmonic material. The sensor consists of a micro-ring resonator (MRR) coupled with a two-dimensional (2D) re-stacked layer of near-infrared plasmonic molybdenum oxide. When the 2D plasmonic layer interacts with ions from the environment, a strong change in the refractive index results in a shift in the MRR resonance wavelength and simultaneously the alteration of plasmonic absorption leads to the modulation of MRR transmission power, hence generating dual sensing outputs which is unique to other optical ion sensors. We demonstrate proof-of-concept via a pH sensing model, showing a up to 7 orders improvement on sensitivity per unit area across the range from 1 to 13 compared to those of other optical pH sensors. Our platform offers the unique potential for ultra-sensitive and robust measurement of changes in ionic environment, generating new modalities for on-chip chemical sensors in the micro/nano-scale.
Keywords: integrated optics, silicon photonics, two-dimensional materials, doped semiconductor, ion sensor
Silicon photonics ionic sensor enabled by hybrid integrated 2D plasmonic MoO3