A method for reduction of propagation loss of surface plasmons. Experimental demonstration of the loss reduction for Fe/MgO/AlGaAs plasmonic structure integrated with AlGaAs/GaAs optical waveguide

A method for the substantial reduction of propagation loss of surface plasmons was proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The method is based on the fact that the propagation loss of the surface plasmons depends significantly on the optical confinement of the plasmon. A plasmonic structure, which contains a metal and two dielectric layers of different refractive indexes, is proposed in order to optimize optical confinement and to reduce propagation loss of the surface plasmons. A low propagation loss of 0.17 dB/um for a surface plasmon in a Fe/MgO/AlGaAs plasmonic structure was achieved. A good coupling efficiency of 2.2 dB/facet between a surface plasmon in Fe/MgO/AlGaAs and a waveguide mode in AlGaAs/GaAs optical waveguide was demonstrated.