Broadband Multifunctional Plasmonic Polarization Converter based on Multimode Interference Coupler

TL;DR

This paper introduces a compact, integrated plasmonic-photonic polarization converter capable of high-efficiency polarization demultiplexing across telecom bands, with potential applications in quantum information and biosensing.

Contribution

It presents a novel multimode interference coupler-based device that achieves simultaneous HWP and QWP functionalities with high efficiency over broad telecom bands.

Findings

Achieves ≥91% polarization conversion efficiency over C to U bands.

Provides quasi-circular polarized beams with opposite spins and topological charges.

Offers potential for on-chip quantum information processing and biosensing.

Abstract

We propose a multifunctional integrated plasmonic-photonic polarization converter for polarization demultiplexing in an indium-phosphide membrane on silicon platform. Using a compact 1$\times$4 multimode interference coupler, this device can provide simultaneous half-wave plate and quarter-wave plate (HWP and QWP) functionalities, where the latter generates two quasi-circular polarized beams with opposite spins and topological charges of $l$ = $\pm$1. Our device employs a two-section HWP to obtain a very large conversion efficiency of $\geq$ 91% over the entire C to U telecom bands, while it offers a conversion efficiency of $\geq$ 95% over $\sim$ 86% of the C to U bands. Our device also illustrates QWP functionality, where the transmission contrast between the transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes is $\approx$ 0 dB over the whole C band and 55% of the C to U bands. We expect this device can be a promising building block for the realization of ultracompact on-chip polarization demultiplexing and lab-on-a-chip biosensing platforms. Finally, our proposed device allows the use of the polarization and angular momentum degrees of freedom, which makes it attractive for quantum information processing.