Design and modeling of long-range hybrid plasmonic waveguides

In this paper, we describe the design and modeling of novel long-range hybrid plasmonic waveguides that consist of both plasmonic thin films and nano-scale structures of a high refractive index material (such as silicon), with a material of low refractive index (such as silicon di-oxide) lying in the region between the nano-scale structures and the plasmonic thin film. We have employed complex geometry of silicon nanostructures in the vicinity of a plasmonic thin film. The effective refractive index and the corresponding propagation length obtained for these plasmonic waveguides and hybrid plasmonic waveguides were obtained using a full-vector finite difference eigen mode solver. In our simulations, different structural parameters of the the hybrid plasmonic waveguides were varied, and the effect of these parameters - on the propagation length and effective mode area - was analyzed. We describe the design of novel hybrid plasmonic waveguides that have a propagation length greater than 1 mm and also have a low effective mode area. The waveguides being proposed by us can be fabricated with relative ease using the standard lithography processes.