Design of a novel nano plasmonic-dielectric photonic crystal power splitter suitable for photonic integrated circuits

Abstract

A novel designation of an all optical plasmonic-dielectric power splitter-filter based on 2-D square lattice photonic crystals (PhCs) is proposed. The structure is consisted of air, aluminum, silver and copper rods in silicon background. Photonic band gap (PBG) analysis and field distributions are obtained by plane wave expansion (PWE) and finite difference time domain (FDTD) methods, respectively. As electromagnetic (EM) wave is propagated, power levels lower than “0.4’’ are considered as “0’’ and higher than “0.5’’ as “1’’. For definite wavelengths, only one output port transfers the power. Therefore, the system acts as a power splitter and filter, simultaneously. The proposed structure can confine lightwave to sub-wavelength dimensions (of the order of nano meter) because the multiple plasmonic/dielectric combinations are utilized in this structure. As a result, this device can be operational in integrated optical circuits.