Integration of short gold nanoparticles chain on SOI waveguide

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the integration of short gold nanoparticle chains on SOI waveguides, enabling efficient energy transfer and highly sensitive environmental detection at telecom wavelengths.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for integrating short gold nanoparticle chains on SOI waveguides supporting localized surface plasmons.

Findings

High energy transfer efficiency at resonance

Transmission sensitivity to nanoparticle environment

Potential for ultra-compact optical sensors

Abstract

In this letter, we demonstrate the integration of short metal nanoparticle chains (L \approx 700nm) supporting localized surface plasmons in Silicon On Insulator (SOI) waveguides at telecom wavelengths. Nanoparticles are deposited on the waveguide top and excited through the evanescent field of the TE waveguide modes. Finite difference time domain calculations and waveguide transmission measurements reveal that almost all the TE mode energy can be transferred to nanoparticle chains at resonance. It is also shown that the transmission level is very sensitive to the nanoparticle environment, thus opening the way towards ultra-compact sensors in guided optics on SOI.