NONLINEAR OPTICAL SWITCH UTILIZING LONG-RANGE SURFACE PLASMON POLARITONS

Abstract

We present a detailed study of the directional couplers (DCs) based on nanometer-thin and micrometer-wide Ag stripes embedded in nonlinear material. A novel design of all-optical switch based on nonlinear plasma waveguide couplers is proposed. The critical optical power P(c) of nonlinear optical switch is low, and the switch effect is easy to be observed. The LR-SPP optical switch has been investigated at lambda = 0.633 mu m, 1 mu m, 1.55 mu m, demonstrating the feasibility of LR-SPP-based all-optical switches for operation in the very broad wavelength range. All the simulations in this paper were performed by using rigorous numerical schemes based on the full-vector finite-element method.