Open AccessA polarization-independent highly sensitive hybrid plasmonic waveguide structure
Author(s) -
Muhammad Ali Butt,
Sergey A. Fomchenkov
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/1695/1/012101
Subject(s) - plasmon , materials science , polarization (electrochemistry) , waveguide , optics , transverse mode , refractive index , silicon , transverse plane , optoelectronics , transverse magnetic , electric field , physics , chemistry , engineering , laser , structural engineering , quantum mechanics
In this paper, we proposed a novel design of a polarization-independent hybrid plasmonic waveguide. The transverse magnetic (TM) hybrid mode is confined in the low index material sandwiched between the silicon core and top gold layer whereas the transverse electric (TE) hybrid mode is supported in a narrow air gap on both sides between the silicon core and a gold layer. For sensing applications, two vital parameters such as the sensitivity of the hybrid mode ( S mode ) and evanescent field ratio ( EFR ) are studied which depends on the geometric parameters of the waveguide. The geometric parameters of the waveguide are optimized using the finite element method. The highest S mode and EFR for both polarizations is greater than 0.91 and 0.6, respectively. This study shows that polarization-independent highly sensitive refractive index sensors or evanescent field absorption gas sensors can be realized by utilizing the proposed hybrid plasmonic waveguide design.