Ultrashort broadband polarization beam splitter based on a combined hybrid plasmonic waveguide

Abstract

We propose an ultracompact broadband polarization beam splitter (PBS) based on a combined hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPW). The proposed PBS separates transverse-electric (TE) and transverse-magnetic (TM) modes using a bent lower HPW with vertical nanoscale gaps and a straight upper HPW with a horizontal nanoscale gap, respectively, without relying on an additional coupling region. This design considerably reduces the length of the PBS to the submicron scale (920 nm, the shortest PBS reported to date) while offering polarization extinction ratios (PERs) of ~19 dB (~18 dB) and insertion losses (ILs) of ~0.6 dB (~0.3 dB) for the TE (TM) mode over an extremely broad band of 400 nm (from λ = 1300 nm to 1700 nm, covering entirely second and third telecom windows). The length of the designed PBS can be reduced further to 620 nm while still offering PERs of 15 dB, realizing a densely photonic integrated circuit. Considering the fabrication tolerance, the designed PBS allows for large geometrical deviations of ± 20 nm while restricting PER variations to within 1 dB, except for those in the nanoscale gaps smaller than 10nm. Additionally, we also address the input and ouput coupling efficiencies of the proposed PBS.