Nonlinear pulse routing in plasmonic couplers

Abstract

We present a system able to discriminate pulses according to their duration with potential applications in all-optical signal multiplexing. The device is based on a directional coupler with nonlinear cores and metallic claddings with dimensions in a nanometric scale. Simulations are carried out using the FDTD technique for ultrashort pulses of femtosecond order. It is shown that the device is able to separate such pulses respect to a time-width threshold which depends on the total energy of the pulse.