Abstract

Recent work demonstrated light transmission through deep subwavelength slits or coupling light into waveguides with deep subwavelength dimension only in one direction. In this paper, we propose an approach to squeeze light (λ = 1550 nm) from a dielectric waveguide into a deep subwavelength spot. Vertical confinement is achieved by efficiently coupling light from a dielectric waveguide into a 20-nm metal-dielectric-metal plasmonic waveguide. The horizontal dimension of the plasmonic waveguide is then tapered into 20 nm. Numerical simulation shows that light fed from a dielectric waveguide can be squeezed into a 21nm-by-24nm spot with efficiency 62%.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

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History
Original Manuscript: October 6, 2008
Manuscript Accepted: November 11, 2008
Revised Manuscript: November 10, 2008
Published: November 21, 2008

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Author Affiliations

Ruoxi Yang, Mustafa A. Abushagur, Zhaolin Lu

Rochester Institute of Technology

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