Title: Plasmonic waveguides – a step closer to integrated nonlinear nanophotonics architectures
When: Monday, July 21, 2025, 12:00
Place: Department of Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics, Faculty of Sciences, Module 5, Seminar Room (5th Floor)
Speaker: Stefano Palomba, University of Sydney, Australia
Integrated nonlinear optical devices are one of the fundamental building blocks of any modern optical integrated circuits, especially those operating in the quantum optical regime.1, 2 However, dielectric photonics platforms are limited by diffraction, hence they are not compact enough to make these devices resource and energy efficient. In order to operate beyond the diffraction limit, these devices could implement plasmonic waveguide-based architectures. In this presentation we show how novel and superior performing plasmonic waveguide configurations could be the next step toward compact and energy efficient nonlinear optical devices. We show how these plasmonic waveguides can be fabricated and integrated with modern integrated dielectric waveguides. Furthermore, we perform a global comparison of plasmonic waveguide configurations to identify the most performing configurations in terms of nonlinear optical signal generation.3-5 We show experimental demonstration of hybrid plasmonic waveguides and how to efficiently couple light from industry standard integrated photonic waveguides into these plasmonic structures.6-8 1. Arrazola, J.M. et al. Quantum circuits with many photons on a programmable nanophotonic chip. Nature 591, 54-60 (2021). 2. Wang, J. et al. Multidimensional quantum entanglement with large-scale integrated optics. Science 360, 285-291 (2018). 3. Li, G., de Sterke, C.M. & Palomba, S. Figure of merit for Kerr nonlinear plasmonic waveguides. Laser & Photonics Reviews 10, 639-646 (2016). 4. Li, G., de Sterke, C.M. & Palomba, S. Fundamental Limitations to the Ultimate Kerr Nonlinear Performance of Plasmonic Waveguides. ACS Photonics 5, 1034-1040 (2018). 5. Li, G., Palomba, S. & de Sterke, C.M. A theory of waveguide design for plasmonic nanolasers. Nanoscale 10, 21434-21440 (2018). 6. Tuniz, A. et al. Modular nonlinear hybrid plasmonic circuit. Nature Communications 11, 2413 (2020). 7. Diaz, F.J. et al. Sensitive method for measuring third order nonlinearities in compact dielectric and hybrid plasmonic waveguides. Optics Express 24, 545-554 (2016). 8. Diaz, F.J., Li, G., de Sterke, C.M., Kuhlmey, B.T. & Palomba, S. Kerr effect in hybrid plasmonic waveguides. Journal of the Optical Society of America B 33, 957-962 (2016).
