A long-range plasmonic optical waveguide corner mirror chip

Abstract

We provide the experimental proof of concept of on-chip 90° corner waveguide arrays based on ultra-long-range surface plasmon polariton waveguides working in TM-polarization at 1.55 μm. The single-mode waveguides comprise a thin gold-photoresist core embedded into SU-8 claddings and show typical propagation loss of ~1 dB/mm. A prismatic cavity integrated into the cladding layers and aligned with the waveguide's corner assures the total internal reflection. We present a fabrication method to integrate the waveguide corner mirror based on self-alignment of multiple lithography steps. This chip has potential as low-loss perpendicular interface for single-mode high speed communication interconnects.

Keywords

• Integrated waveguide
• Plasmon
• Plasmonic
• Optical interconnect
• Planar lightwave circuits