Amplification and Excitation of Surface Plasmon Polaritons via Four-Wave Mixing Process

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel scheme using four-wave mixing in quantum wells to excite and amplify surface plasmon polaritons, compensating losses and enhancing their propagation and lifetime.

Contribution

It introduces a quantum interference-based, coupler-free method for SPP excitation and amplification via FWM in asymmetric double quantum wells.

Findings

SPPs' propagation length is significantly increased.

Gain through FWM enhances SPPs' lifetime.

Long-range and short-range SPPs are both improved.

Abstract

We suggest a scheme for the excitation and amplification of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) along the interface between metal and semiconductor quantum well (SQW), employing a four-wave mixing (FWM) process. The SQW consists of four-level asymmetric double quantum wells that exhibit quantum interference effects, which leads to the coupler-free excitation of SPPs. In our proposed system, the inherent losses of SPPs are compensated by introducing gain through the FWM process. This results in a significant enhancement in the propagation length and large penetration depth of SPPs. We further analyze the effect of gain on the long-range and short-range SPPs and observe that the propagation distance and lifetime of both types of SPPs are enhanced.