1166
5, SEPTEMBER 2011
Improved Models for Plasmonic Waveguide
Splitters and Demultiplexers at the
Telecommunication Wavelengths
Jia Hu Zhu, Xu Guang Huang, and Xian Mei
Abstract—Single output channel selective plasmonic filter struc-
ture based on a nanocavity is proposed and numerically simu-
lated by using the finite difference time domain method with per-
fectly matched layer absorbing boundary condition. The required
filtered wavelength can be obtained by selecting an appropriate
length of the nanocavity. Nanocavity model and gain model are
introduced and analyzed. Two output channels structure based on
two nanocavities is proposed to design a subwavelength plasmonic
splitter and demultiplexer operating around 1310 nm and 1550 nm.
The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulation results re-
veal that this new structure is suitable for wideband wavelengths
demultiplexing. Finally, we propose a multiwavelength demulti-
plexing structure based on multinanocavity connected to the bus
waveguide.
Index Terms—Integrated optics devices, multiplexing, optical
resonators, surface plasmons, wavelength filtering.
I. INTRODUCTION
URFACE plasmon polaritons (SPPs) have the potential to
S guide light at deep subwavelength scale [1], [2]. There-
fore, the investigation of plasmonic waveguide structures has
been paid great attentions, and several different nanoscale
plasmonic waveguide structures have been recently proposed,
such as metallic nanowires [3], [4], metallic nanoparticle ar-
rays [5], [6] as well as V grooves in metal substrates [7], plas-
mon slots [2], and metal wedges [8], [9]. Metal-insulator-metal
(MIM) waveguide is considered to have unique advantages be-
cause of its strong field localization, simplicity, and convenience
for fabrication and integration into optical circuits. A variety of
functional plasmonic MIM structures have been designed and
fabricated, such as U-shaped waveguides [10], splitters [11],
switches [12], [13], Y-shaped combiners [14], couplers [15],
and M-Z interferometers [16], [17].
Wavelength selecting is one of key technologies in fields
of optical communication. Filters based on Bragg reflectors or
Manuscript received July 23, 2010; revised November 16, 2010 and
December 22, 2010; accepted February 22, 2011. Date of publication March 7,
2011; date of current version September 8, 2011. This work was supported by
the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61077038). The
review of this paper was arranged by Associate Editor A. A. Balandin.
The authors are with the Key Laboratory of Photonic Information Technology
of Guangdong Higher Education Institutes, School of Information and Optoelec-
tronic Science and Engineering, University in Guangzhou U-City, Guangzhou
510006, China (e-mail: zhujiahu@126.com; huangxg@scnu.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TNANO.2011.2123113
1536-125X/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Downloaded on May 08,2024 at 18:18:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NANOTECHNOLOGY, VOL. 10, NO.
nanocavities [18], [19], side-coupled cavity [20], teeth or stub
structure [21]–[23] have been investigated recently. However,
all of wavelength filters in the literatures, either Bragg grating,
cavity or stub structures are almost reflective or transmitted pass-
band or stop-band filters. The reflected or transmitted waves in
these structures are in the same channel of entrance waves and
not easy to separate. Nevertheless, light splitters, which are used
to divide light into several channels, are essential components
for WDM systems. Recently, Gan et al. [24], [25] proposed a
plasmonic surface-wave splitter based on a bidirectional sub-
wavelength slit. Noual et al. [26] designed a plasmonic splitter
based on a Y-bent integrated with two selective waveguide filters
around telecommunication wavelengths. He et al. [27] proposed
a plasmonic splitter based on the metal-insulator-metal wave-
guide with periodic grooves. Qi et al. [28] proposed spectrally
selective splitters with metal-dielectric-metal surface plasmon
waveguides. However, all of the splitter structures mentioned
above have large sizes over several wavelengths. Given the per-
spective of integrating splitter components within several mi-
crometers, people need to decrease the size of devices to meet the
demand of high integration. In this paper, subwavelength SPP
splitters and demultiplexers structures based on MIM nanocav-
ities are proposed and demonstrated numerically by using the
finite difference time domain method (FDTD) with perfectly
matched layer absorbing boundary condition.
This paper is organized as follows: In Section II, an ana-
lytic model based on resonator theory is given, as well as gain
model. In Section III, characteristics of the selective plasmonic
filter structure are discussed. Sections IV and V study the struc-
tures of the two channels and three channels plasmonic split-
ters. Finally, some conclusions about the splitter and demulti-
plexer in nanoscale plasmonic waveguides are summarized in
Section VI.
II. THEORY MODEL
A. Nanocavity Model
Fig. 1(a) shows the structure schematic of the nanocavity
composed of two wide waveguides and a narrow waveguide
filled with SiO2 material. Each waveguide segment, we study,
is a slot waveguide discussed in [31]. The space distribution of
the mode has also been presented in Fig. 1(b). Obviously, the
structure can be treated as two MIM waveguides with differ-
ent widths. Because the width of the narrow MIM waveguide
is much smaller than that of the wide MIM waveguide; here,
we call the narrower waveguide as nanocavity. The dielectric
ZHU et al.: IMPROVED MODELS FOR PLASMONIC WAVEGUIDE SPLITTERS AND DEMULTIPLEXERS
Fig. 1. (a) (Color online) Schematics of MIM nanocavity structures (top view).
(b) Characteristic profile of H-energy density for TM mode. (c) Schematic of
the structure with a wide and a narrow slot waveguides (top view).
constant εm of silver can be calculated based on Drude-
Lorentzian model:
ω2 2
gL m ωL2 m Δε
εm (ω) = ε∞ − 2 D − different wavelengths (range from the visible to and infrared
ω + iγD ω m =1 ω 2 − ωL2 m + i2γL m ω
(1)
where ε∞ = 2.3646, ω D = 8.7377 eV, γ D = 0.07489 eV,
Δε = 1.1831, gL 1 = 0.26663, ω L 1 = 4.3802 eV, γ L 1 =
0.28 eV, gL 2 = 0.7337, ω L 2 = 5.183 eV, and γ L 2 = 0.5482 eV.
Equation (1) gives a good description of empirical dielectric con-
stant data for silver within the range of 500 nm–1800 nm [29].
The complex propagation constant β = βR + jβI of surface
plasmon polaritons in every MIM waveguide can be obtained
by solving the dispersive mode equation [30], [31]:
 
ikz 1
εin kz 2 + εm kz 1 tanh − w =0 (2)
2 power of the nanocavity with the length of L. Here, g and α are,
Authorized licensed use limited to: Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Downloaded on May 08,2024 at 18:18:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1167
kz 1 and kz 2 defined as: kz21 = εin k02 − β 2 and kz22 = εm k02 −
β 2 , where εin and εm are respectively dielectric constants of the
insulator and the metal. k0 = 2π/λ is the wave number of light
with wavelength λ in vacuum. The effective index is represented
as neff = βR /k0 .
The effective index of the waveguide decreases with the
increasing of the width of waveguide w at the same wave-
length [21]. Therefore, the effective index neff2 of the nanocavity
part can be larger than neff1 of the wide MIM waveguide part due
to the difference of the width of the two waveguides and medi-
ums filled in. The waves will flow into the nanocavity due to
its higher effective index, when SPP waves propagate along the
interface between metal and air. The wave transmitted into the
nanocavity will be partly reflected at two ends of the nanocavity,
because of the index differences between neff2 and neff1 . One
can expect the nanocavity operates as a resonator. Resonance
waves can be formed only in some appropriate conditions within
nanocavity segment. Defining Δϕ to be the phase delay per
round-trip in the nanocavity, one has Δϕ = 4πneff L/λ + ϕr ,
where ϕr = ϕ1 + ϕ2 , ϕ1 , and ϕ2 are, respectively, the phase
shifts of the beam reflected at both ends of the nanocavity,
and L is the length of the nanocavity. The waves propagating
through the structure will be trapped within the nanocavity when
the following resonant condition is satisfied: Δϕ = 2mπ. Here,
positive integer m is the number of antinodes of the standing
SPPs wave. The resonant wavelengths can be obtained as fol-
lows [20]:
2neff L
λm = . (3)
(m − ϕr /π)
From (3), one can see that the wavelength λm is linear to the
length and the effective index of the nanocavity, respectively.
Obviously, only the waves with the wavelength λm can exist sta-
bly in the nanocavity, and thus partly transmit through the output
end of the nanocavity. When wideband incident SPP waves in
the range of 500 nm to 2400 nm SPP waves are launched into
the structure, only the resonant waves with the wavelength λm
can be selected by the nanocavity. Namely, a transmission peak
with the wavelength λm is formed in the output channel.
B. Gain Model
There are many different rees, such as Er, Ho, Nd, Sm, Tm,
Pr, Yb, and so on, can be used to achieve the amplification of
spectrum). Especially, praseodymium-doped fiber and erbium-
doped fiber amplifiers, respectively, work at the wavelength of
1310 nm and 1550 nm optical communication windows. The
gain coefficient of the doped fiber can be controlled by the dop-
ing concentration and pump power. Additionally, dye molecules
can also be used to achieve the amplification of the visible
wavelength. The purpose of the gain medium introduction is to
compensate the SPPs propagation losses within the nanocav-
ity for a lossless nanocavity. The required gain for a lossless
nanocavity is thus equal to the SPPs propagation losses only.
Defining K ≡ exp[2(g − α)L] to be the magnification of the
1168 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NANOTECHNOLOGY, VOL. 10, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2011

respectively, the gain coefficient and the factor of propagation

loss of MIM waveguide. The gain compensation gc can be ob-
tained when the value of K is set to be 1. It gives the expression
of the gain compensation as follows:
gc = α. (4)
In order to obtain accurate values of α, the numerical calculation
based on dispersive and absorptive FDTD method is employed.
Fig. 1(c) shows the method of calculating the value of α. Two
power monitors are set at the positions of P and Q to detect
the incident power of Pin and the transmitted power of Pout .
Accordingto the formula Pout = Pin e−2α L , we can obtain the
value of α.
The field of the beam after propagating in gain medium with
the distance of ΔL is given as follows:
E(ΔL) = Ei + ΔE = Ei e(iω t+ik 0 n e f f Δ L ) eg Δ L (5) Fig. 2. (Color online) Transmission spectrum of the single output channel
selective plasmonic filter structure with the length of L = 150 nm. Inset: Trans-
mission spectra versus the nanocavity length L with the same width of w =
where Ei stands for the field of the incident beam, g is the 15 nm.
gain coefficient of the gain medium. Equation (5) can be also
expressed as follows:
E(ΔL) = Ei eiω t e(ik 0 Δ L ñ ) . (6)
Here, ñ ≡ neff − ig/k0 is the complex refractive index of
the gain medium. Therefore, the FDTD method can be em-
ployed to numerically simulate/solve electromagnetic propa-
gation through a gain medium, by means of introducing the
complex refractive index into the Maxwell’s equations and its
FDTD method.

III. SINGLE OUTPUT CHANNEL SELECTIVE PLASMONIC

FILTER STRUCTURE
The structure schematic of the single output channel selective
plasmonic filter is shown in Fig. 1(a). The refractive index of
SiO2 is set to be 1.44. In the following FDTD simulations, the
grid sizes in the x and z directions are set to be 3 nm × 3 nm. The
fundamental TM mode of the plasmonic waveguide is launched
from the left to the right of the waveguide. Because the width
of the MIM plasmonic waveguide is much smaller than the
wavelength, only the fundamental transverse magnetic (TM)
waveguide mode can propagate. Two power monitors are set at
the locations of P (outside the resonator but just near its entrance)
and Q (outside the resonator but just near its exit) to detect the
incident power without reflection (replacing narrow waveguide
with wide waveguide) and transmitted power of Pin and Pout .
The transmittance is defined to be T = Pout /Pin . For the sake
of comparison, the wide waveguide width ws , the nanocavity
waveguide width w and the distance d are, respectively, fixed to
be 250 nm, 15 nm, and 50 nm. L is the length of the nanocavity.
A typical selective filtering transmission spectrum is shown in
Fig. 2. From Fig. 2, one can see that the peak wavelength occurs
at around the wavelength of 900 nm and its transmittance is
about 60%. The inset of Fig. 2 shows the peak wavelength as a
function of the nanocavity length L. From it, it can be seen that
the peak wavelength linearly increases with the increase of the
length of the nanocavity. The selective wavelength can be easily
tuned by choosing an appropriate nanocavity length.
Fig. 3. (Color online) schematic of two output channels plasmonic splitter
and demultiplexer structure (top view).
IV. TWO OUTPUT CHANNELS PLASMONIC SPLITTER
AND DEMULTIPLEXER STRUCTURE
The structure schematic of two output channels, plasmonic
splitter and demultiplexer, is shown in Fig. 3. Praseodymium-
doped fiber and erbium-doped fiber, whose refractive indices
are set to be 1.45, are, respectively, filled into the nanocav-
ity of the channel1 and channel2. Two power monitors are set
at the locations of Q1 and Q2 (outside the resonator but just
near its exit) to detect the output channel1 and output chan-
nel2 transmitted powers of P1 and P2 .The transmittance are
defined to be T1 = P1 /Pin and T2 = P2 /Pin , where Pin is the
incident power without reflection (replacing narrow waveguide
with wide waveguide) of the beam. L1 and L2 are, respectively,
the nanocavity length of the channel1 and channel2. The other
parameters of the structure are kept the same as Section III.
Fig. 4 shows transmission spectra at the outputs of the two
channels. One can see that channel1 and channel2 can select
1310 nm and 1550 nm bands with the length of L1 = 170 nm
and L2 = 210 nm, respectively. g1 and g2 are, respectively, gain

Authorized licensed use limited to: Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Downloaded on May 08,2024 at 18:18:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
ZHU et al.: IMPROVED MODELS FOR PLASMONIC WAVEGUIDE SPLITTERS AND DEMULTIPLEXERS
Fig. 4. (Color online) Transmission spectra of the two output channels plas-
monic splitter and demultiplexer structure with the lengths of L1 = 170 nm and
L2 = 210 nm.
coefficients of the channel1 and channel2. g1 and g2 are, re-
spectively, equal to 1.05 × 10−4 nm−1 and 8.1 × 10−5 nm−1
obtained from FDTD method. The FWHM (full width at half
maximum) of channel1 and channel2 are 30 nm. Cross-talk is
defined as the ratio between the power of the undesired and
desired bands at the outputs. The cross-talk between channel1
and channel2 is around −23 dB for the 1310 nm branch, and
the cross-talk between them is −21 dB for the 1550 nm branch.
Therefore, this structure is suitable for wideband wavelengths’
demultiplexing.
We make a simple comparison of our proposed structure with
those considered in [26]–[28]. Although all the plasmonic struc-
tures in this paper and [26]–[28] are capable of splitting the light
of different wavelengths; there are many differences among
them. First, all of the structures of [26]–[28] have large size
or length; they will not meet the demand of high nanoscale inte-
gration. Such as Noual et al. [26]-designed structures required
more than 1.5 μm separation-distances between Y-junction and
the cavities to avoid the coupling between them, Qi et al. [28]-
proposed structures have lager sizes over several micrometers
with the period number of N > 5 for the Bragg grating struc-
ture, and He et al. [27]-proposed structures are even much larger
with the period number of N > 10 for the grating-like structure.
Second, large size or length also results in relatively high prop-
agation loss; such as Noual et al. [26]-designed structure has
lower than −5 dB transmittance at the wavelength of 1550 nm.
Third, He et al. [27]- and Qi et al. [28]-proposed structures
are not convenient for fabrication and integration into optical
circuits due to the too much period grating-like structures have
to be used. What is more, He et al. [27]- and Qi et al. [28]-
proposed structures are only able to be used for splitting the
two monochromatic incident waves. However, in this paper,
we propose a subwavelength plasmonic splitter structure, and
the structure is simple and convenient for fabrication and in-
tegration into optical circuits. The structure losses (including
surface plasmon losses), can be compensated by the gain mate-
rial filled in. The FDTD simulation results reveal that the new
structure is suitable for wideband wavelengths’ demultiplexing.
Authorized licensed use limited to: Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Downloaded on May 08,2024 at 18:18:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
1169
Fig. 5. (Color online) Schematic of three output channels plasmonic splitter
and demultiplexer structure (top view).
Additionally, our proposed structure is very easy to design a
multiwavelength splitting and demultiplexing structure by more
nanocavity output channels are added to the bus wavelength. It
will be seen from it that our proposed structure is expected
to have potential applications in highly integrated photonic
circuits and nanometeric photonic networks. As an example,
three output channels splitter and demultiplexer is designed in
Section V.
V. THREE OUTPUT CHANNELS PLASMONIC SPLITTER
AND DEMULTIPLEXER STRUCTURE
The structure schematic of three output channels plasmonic
splitter and demultiplexer is shown in Fig. 5. Ytterbium-doped,
praseodymium-doped fiber and erbium-doped fiber, whose re-
fractive indices are set to be 1.45, are, respectively, filled into
the nanocavity of the channel1, channel2, and channel3. Three
power monitors are set at the locations of Q1 , Q2 , and Q3 (out-
side the resonator but just near its exit) to detect the output
channel1, channel2, and channel3 transmitted powers of P1 , P2 ,
and P3 . The transmittance are defined to be T1 = P1 /Pin , T2 =
P2 /Pin , and T3 = P3 /Pin , where Pin is the incident power without
reflection (replacing narrow waveguide with wide waveguide)
of the beam. L1 , L2 , and L3 are, respectively, the nanocavity
lengths of the channel1, channel2, and channel3. The other pa-
rameters of the structure are kept the same as Section III. Fig. 6
shows transmission spectra at the outputs of the three chan-
nels. One can see channel1, channel2, and channel3 can select
980 nm, 1310 nm and 1550 nm bands with the lengths of L1 =
148 nm, L2 = 170 nm, and L3 = 205 nm, respectively. g1 , g2 , and
g3 are, respectively, gain coefficient of the channel1, channel2,
and channel3. g1 , g2 , and g3 are, respectively, equal to 1.02 ×
10−4 nm−1 , 1.15 × 10−4 nm−1 , and 8.5 × 10−5 nm−1 obtained
from FDTD method. The FWHM (full width at half maximum)
of channel1, channel2, and channel3 are about 35 nm. Cross-talk
is defined as the ratio between the power of the undesired and
desired bands at the outputs. The cross-talk between channel1
and channel2 is around −30 dB for the 980 nm branch, and the
cross-talk between them is −21 dB for the 1310 nm branch. The
cross-talk between channel2 and channel3 is around −26 dB for
1170
Fig. 6. (Color online) Transmission spectra of the three output channels plas-
monic splitter and demultiplexer structure with the lengths of L1 = 148 nm,
L2 = 170 nm, and L3 = 205 nm.
the 1310 nm branch, and the cross-talk between them is −24 dB
for the 1550 nm branch. The cross-talk between channel1 and
channel3 is around −30 dB for the 980 nm branch, and the
cross-talk between them is −21 dB for the 1550 nm branch.
Therefore, this structure is suitable for wideband wavelengths
demultiplexing.
VI. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we first introduce and analyze nanocavity
model and gain model. Single output channel selective plas-
monic filter structure and its performance are numerically sim-
ulated. The required filtered wavelength can be obtained by se-
lecting an appropriate length of the nanocavity. Two output chan-
nels’ structure is proposed to design a subwavelength plasmonic
splitter and demultiplexer, based on two nanocavity waveguides
operating around 1310 nm and 1550 nm. The FDTD simula-
tion results reveal that this new structure is suitable for wide-
band wavelengths demultiplexing. Finally, we proposed a multi-
wavelength demultiplexing structure based on multinanocavity
connected to the bus waveguide. The small dimensions of our
proposed structures might become a choice for the fabrication
of all-optical integrated devices and circuits for optical com-
puting and communication, especially in WDM systems in the
nanoscale.
REFERENCES
[1] H. Raether, Surface Plasmon on Smooth and Rough Surfaces and Grat-
ings. Berlin, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 1998.
[2] L. Liu, Z. Han, and S. He, “Novel surface Plasmon waveguide for high
integration,” Opt. Express, vol. 13, pp. 6445–6650, 2005.
[3] J. C. Weeber, A. Dereu, C. Griard, J. R. Krenn, and J. P. Goudonnet, “Plas-
mon polaritons of metallic nanowires for controlling submicron propaga-
tion of light,” Phys. Rev. B, vol. 60, pp. 9061–9068, 1999.
[4] R. M. Dickson and L. A. Lyon, “Unidirectional plasmon propagation in
metallic nanowires,” J. Phys. Chem. B, vol. 104, pp. 6095–6098, 2000.
[5] M. Quinten, A. Leitner, J. R. Krenn, and F. R. Aussenegg, “Electromag-
netic energy transport via linear chains of silver nanoparticles,” Opt. Lett,
vol. 23, pp. 1331–1333, 1998.
[6] S. A. Maier, P. G. Kik, H. A. Atwater, S. Meltzer, E. Harel, B. E. Koel, and
A. A. G. Requicha, “Local detection of electromagnetic energy transport
Authorized licensed use limited to: Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Downloaded on May 08,2024 at 18:18:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON NANOTECHNOLOGY, VOL. 10, NO. 5, SEPTEMBER 2011
below the diffraction limit in metal nanoparticle plasmon waveguides,”
Nat. Mater, vol. 2, pp. 229–232, 2003.
[7] S. I. Bozhevolnyi, V. S. Volkov, E. Devaux, and T. W. Ebbesen, “Channel
Plasmon-Polariton Guiding by Subwavelength Metal Grooves,” Phys.
Rev. Lett., vol. 95, p. 046802, 2005.
[8] E. Moreno, S. G. Rodrigo, S. I. Bozhevolnyi, L. Martin-Moreno, and
F. J. Garcia-Vidal, “Guiding and focusing of electromagnetic fields with
wedge plasmon polaritons,” Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 100, p. 023901, 2008.
[9] A. Boltasseva, V. S. Volkov, R. B. Nielsen, E. Moreno, S. G. Rodrigo, and
S. I. Bozhevolnyi, “Triangular metal wedges for subwavelength plasmon-
polariton guiding at telecom wavelength,” Opt. Exp., vol. 16, p. 5252—
5260, 2008.
[10] T. Lee and S. Gray, “Subwavelength light bending by metal slit structures,”
Opt. Exp., vol. 13, pp. 9652–9659, 2005.
[11] G. Veronis and S. Fan, “Bends and splitters in metal-dielectric-metal sub-
wavelength plasmonic waveguides,” Appl. Phys. Lett, vol. 87, p. 131102,
2005.
[12] Z. Yu, G. Veronis, S. Fan, and M. L. Brongersma, “Gain-induced switch-
ing in metal- dielectric-metal plasmonic waveguides,” Appl. Phys. Lett,
vol. 92, p. 041117, 2008.
[13] C. J. Min and G. Veronis, “Absorption switches in metal-dielectric-
metal plasmonic waveguides,” Opt. Exp., vol. 17, pp. 10757–10766,
2009.
[14] H. Gao, H. Shi, C. Wang, C. Du, X. Luo, Q. Deng, Y. Lv, X. Lin,
and H. Yao, “Surface plasmon polariton propagation and combination
in Y-shaped metallic channels,” Opt. Exp., vol. 13, pp. 10795–10800,
2005.
[15] H. Zhao, X. Huang, and J. Huang, “Novel optical directional coupler
based on surface plasmon polaritons,” Physica. E, vol. 40, pp. 3025–3029,
2008.
[16] B. Wang and G. Wang, “Surface plasmon polariton propagation in
nanoscale metal gap waveguides,” Opt. Lett, vol. 29, pp. 1992–1994,
2004.
[17] Z. Han, L. Liu, and E. Forsberg, “Ultra-compact directional couplers and
Mach-Zehnder interferometers employing surface plasmon polaritons,”
Opt. Commun, vol. 259, pp. 690–695, 2006.
[18] B. Wang and G. Wang, “Plasmon Bragg reflectors and nanocavities on flat
metallic surface,” Appl. Phys. Lett, vol. 87, p. 013107, 2005.
[19] W. Lin and G. Wang, “Metal heterowave guide superlattices for a plas-
monic analog to electronic bloch oscillations,” Appl. Phys. Lett, vol. 91,
p. 143121, 2007.
[20] Q. Zhang, X.-G Huang, X.-S. Lin, J. Tao, and X.-P Jin, “A subwavelength
coupler-type MIM optical filter,” Opt. Exp., vol. 17, pp. 7549–7554, 2009.
[21] X.-S. Lin and X.-G. Huang, “Tooth-shaped plasmonic waveguide lters
with nanometeric sizes,” Opt. Lett, vol. 33, pp. 2874–2876, 2008.
[22] X.-S. Lin and X.-G. Huang, “Numerical modeling of a teeth-shaped
nanoplasmonic waveguide filter,” J. Opt. Soc. Am. B, vol. 26, pp. 1263–
1268, 2009.
[23] Y. Matsuzaki, T. Okamoto, M. Haraguchi, M. Fukui, and A. Nakagaki,
“Characteristics of gap plasmon waveguide with stub structures,” Opt.
Exp., vol. 16, pp. 16314–16325, 2009.
[24] Q. Gan, B. Guo, G. Song, L. Chen, Z. Fu, Y. J. Ding, and F. J. Bartoli,
“Plasmonic surface-wave splitter,” Appl. Phy. Lett., vol. 90, p. 161130,
2007.
[25] Q. Gan, Z. Fu, Y. J. Ding, and F. J. Bartoli, “Bidirectional subwavelength
slit splitter for THz surface plasmons,” Opt. Exp., vol. 15, p. 18050,
2007.
[26] A. Noual, A. Akjouj1, Y. Pennec, J.-N. Gillet, and B. Djafari-Rouhani,
“Modeling of two-dimensional nanoscale Y-bent plasmonic waveguides
with cavities for demultiplexing of the telecommunication wavelengths,”
New J. Phys., vol. 11, p. 103020, 2009.
[27] M.-D. He, J.-Q. Liu, Z.-Q. Gong, Y.-F. Luo, X. Chen, and L. Wei, “Plas-
monic splitter based on the metal-insulator-metal waveguide,” Opt. Com-
mun., vol. 283, pp. 1784–1787, 2010.
[28] Y. Qi, D. Gan, J. Ma, J. Cui, C. Wang, and X. Luo, “Spectrally selective
splitters with metal-dielectric-metal surface plasmon waveguides,” Appl.
Phys. B., vol. 95, pp. 807–812, 2009.
[29] P. B. Johnson and R. W. Christy, “Optical constants of the noble metals,”
Phys. Rev., vol. 6, pp. 4370–4379, 1972.
[30] A. Boltasseva, S. I. Bozhevolnyi, T. Nikolajsen, and K. Leosson, “Compact
bragg gratings for long-range surface plasmon polaritons,” J. Lightw.
Technol., vol. 24, pp. 912–918, 2006.
[31] J. A. Dionne, L. A. Sweatlock, and H. A. Atwater, “Plasmon slot waveg-
uides: Towards chip-scale propagation with subwavelength-scale local-
ization,” Phys. Rev. B., vol. 73, p. 035407, 2006.
ZHU et al.: IMPROVED MODELS FOR PLASMONIC WAVEGUIDE SPLITTERS AND DEMULTIPLEXERS 1171

Jia Hu Zhu was born in Guangdong, China, on
October, 24, 1986. He received the B.E degree in in-
formation and optoelectronic science and engineering
from South China Normal University, Guangzhou,
China, in 2009.
He has been a Postgraduate in the Key Laboratory
of Photonic Information Technology of Guangdong
Higher Education Institutes, School of Information
and Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, South
China Normal University, Guangzhou, China. He has
been engaged in research on integrated photonics and
fiber-optic communications.
Xu Guang Huang received the Ph.D. degree in op-
tics from Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China,
in 1992.
He was a Postdoctoral Research Associate with
the University of Miami and Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, Troy, NY, in 1996–2000. He was a Senior
Product Engineer at two Canada and USA fiber-optic
technology companies in 2000–2003. He has been a
Professor in the laboratory of Photonic Information
Technology, School of Information and Optoelec-
tronic Science and Engineering, South China Nor-
mal University, Guangzhou, China, since 2004. He has published more than 70
peer-reviewed papers in international academic journals and has two patents.
His current research interests include integrated photonics, fiber-optic commu-
nications, and fiber sensor.

Xian Mei, photograph and biography not available at the time of publication.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Princess Sumaya University for Technology. Downloaded on May 08,2024 at 18:18:53 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.