Miniature Surface Plasmon Polariton Amplitude Modulator by Beat Frequency and Polarization Control

The miniaturization of modulators keeps pace for the compact devices in optical applications. Here, we present a miniature surface plasmon polariton amplitude modulator (SPPAM) by directing and interfering surface plasmon polaritons on a nanofabricated chip. Our results show that this SPPAM enables...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2016-08, Vol.6 (1), p.32098-32098, Article 32098
Main Authors: Chang, Cheng-Wei, Lin, Chu-En, Yu, Chih-Jen, Yeh, Ting-Tso, Yen, Ta-Jen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/624/399/1015
639/624/400/1021
Humanities and Social Sciences
Lasers
Light
Materials science
multidisciplinary
Noise
Phase transitions
Polarization
Propagation
Science
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Summary:The miniaturization of modulators keeps pace for the compact devices in optical applications. Here, we present a miniature surface plasmon polariton amplitude modulator (SPPAM) by directing and interfering surface plasmon polaritons on a nanofabricated chip. Our results show that this SPPAM enables two kinds of modulations. The first kind of modulation is controlled by encoding angular-frequency difference from a Zeeman laser, with a beat frequency of 1.66 MHz; the second of modulation is validated by periodically varying the polarization states from a polarization generator, with rotation frequencies of 0.5–10 k Hz. In addition, the normalized extinction ratio of our plasmonic structure reaches 100. Such miniaturized beat-frequency and polarization-controlled amplitude modulators open an avenue for the exploration of ultrasensitive nanosensors, nanocircuits, and other integrated nanophotonic devices.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/srep32098