Ultracompact on-chip photothermal power monitor based on silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguides

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate an ultracompact on-chip photothermal power monitor based on a silicon hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPWG), which consists of a metal strip, a silicon core, and a silicon oxide (SiO2) insulator layer between them. When light injected to an HPWG is absorbed by the metal strip, the temperature increases and the resistance of the metal strip changes accordingly due to the photothermal and thermal resistance effects of the metal. Therefore, the optical power variation can be monitored by measuring the resistance of the metal strip on the HPWG. To obtain the electrical signal for the resistance measurement conveniently, a Wheatstone bridge circuit is monolithically integrated with the HPWG on the same chip. As the HPWG has nanoscale light confinement, the present power monitor is as short as ~3 μm, which is the smallest photothermal power monitor reported until now. The compactness helps to improve the thermal efficiency and the response speed. For the present power monitor fabricated with simple fabrication processes, the measured responsivity is as high as about 17.7 mV/mW at a bias voltage of 2 V and the power dynamic range is as large as 35 dB.

Keywords

• photodetectors
• photothermal effects
• surface plasmons
• silicon