The Influence of the Different Gain Material on the Loss Compensation of Hybrid Plasmonic Waveguide

Abstract

The influence of different gain materials and waveguide parameters on propagation properties are analyzed in detail. In this paper, three materials including Al2 O3 , Si3 N4 , and Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) as low index materials are introduced instead of SiO2 which is used in many experiments. The results obtained via simulations showed that by increasing the width of metal, field confinement increased and for widths larger than 450 nm the filed profile was completely confined in below the metal (zone I). In addition to, simulation results showed that Al2 O3 and Si3 N4 are more efficient than SiO2 whereas PMMA is completely similar to SiO2 in loss compensation. It was attributed to the fact that the refractive index of PMMA is close to the refractive index of SiO2 . Moreover, the effect of InGaAsP as high index gain material instead of Si is analyzed. In this case, InGaAsP also reveals a loss compensation effect similar to Si due to their close refractive indexes. Therefore, the configuration with new different gain materials potentially offers an appealing solution to provide lossless light transport via low compensation gain, hence opening venues for ultra-compact active plasmonic devices.