Active plasmonic and metamaterials and devices

This communication focuses on the integration of organic nonlinear optical and gain materials into plasmonic and metamaterial device architectures and most specifically focuses on the integration of organic electro-optic (OEO) materials into such structures. The central focus is on structures that lead to sub-optical wavelength concentration of light (mode confinement) and the interaction of photonic and plasmonic modes. Optical loss and bandwidth limitations are serious issues with such structures and optical loss is evaluated for prototype device architectures associated with the use of silver and gold nanoparticles and membranes supporting plasmonic resonances. Electro-optic activity in organic materials requires that chromophores exhibit finite noncentrosymmetric organization. Because of material conductivity and integration issues, plasmonic and metamaterial device architectures are more challenging than conventional triple stack all-organic device architectures and electro-optic of a given OEO material may be an order of magnitude less in such structures. Because of this, we have turned to a variety of materials processing options for such integration including crystal growth, sequential synthesis/self assembly, and electric field poling of materials deposited from solution or by vapor deposition. Recent demonstration of integration of silicon photonic modulator and lithium niobate modulator structures with metallic plasmonic structures represent a severe challenge for organic electro-optic material plasmonic devices as these devices afford high bandwidth operation and attractive V_πL performance. Optical loss remains a challenge for all structures. © 2010 SPIE.