Modifying the figure of merit in hybrid plasmonic waveguide for Kerr nonlinear effect

Abstract

Hybrid plasmonic waveguide (HPW) has offered the promise to combine long propagation lengths and strong modal confinement at sub-wavelength scale. All-optical signal processing can be achieved by relying on nonlinear optical interactions such as Kerr nonlinear effect. It is essential to provide sufficient information in order to characterize the nonlinear optical performance of nonlinear HPW (NLHPW). In this study, a figure of merit (FoM) was proposed for the description of the performance of the nonlinear optical waveguide characterized by its material damage threshold, propagation length, nonlinear coefficient, and confinement factor. In this paper, SOI-based and InP-based NLHPW were simulated using finite element method, and they were evaluated with regards to proposed FoM at telecom wavelength of 1550 nm.