Plasmonic switch based on asymmetric cavities with embedding square of gold inside the cavities

Abstract

We proposed an all-optical plasmonic switch based on metal-insulator-metal structures. We used the intrinsic nonlinear properties of gold to implement the switch. The proposed switch consists of a bus waveguide side coupled with a pair of asymmetric vertical cavities. We obtained the transmission spectrum of the structure for low input intensities. The results showed that a sharp dip occurs at the wavelength of 860 nm. Due to the nonlinear properties of gold and the nonlinear Kerr effects, the proposed switch has a high transmission ratio of about 0.8 mW / μm2 and a low threshold power of 0.07 mW / μm2. The threshold power of the structure with and without using the gold nanostructure shows a reduction of 50%. The result showed that the proposed switch has the potential to be applied in the plasmonic integration circuits.