EMC-Free: Plasmonics as Signal Transmission Interconnects in Nanoelectronic Circuits

Plasmonics is proposed to transmit information optically from one electronic component to another in integrated nanoelectronic circuits. A metal-insulator-metal (MIM) plasmonic waveguide, instead of a traditional dielectric waveguide or an electric wire, is used for data transmission. The plasmonic waveguide confines electromagnetic waves into a dielectric slot with a cross-section of 50nm x 50nm, and propagates the electromagnetic waves close to the speed of light. Two nanoparticles that forms a nanoantenna are employed to receive the plasmonic waves from the waveguide, and to localize as well as enhance the received electromagnetic fields in the proximity space of the two nanoparticles. Such enhanced fields are converted to electric signals by a nanoscale plasmonics-to-electronics converter, which has a nanosized active volume and a potential THz bandwidth. Both the plasmonic waveguide and the converter have a nanoscale size comparable to that of modern nanoelectronic counterparts. The proposed method could be used to improve the performance of existing nanoelectronic systems by exploiting the strength of optics.