We report a method for obtaining unity-order refractive index changes in the accumulation layer of a metal-oxide-semiconductor heterostructure with conducting oxide as the active material. Under applied field, carrier concentrations at the dielectric/conducting oxide interface increase from 1 x 10(21)/cm(3) to 2.8 x 10(22)/cm(3), resulting in a local refractive index change of 1.39 at 800 nm. When this structure is modeled as a plasmonic waveguide, the change corresponds to a modal index change of 0.08 for the plasmonic mode.

The realization of practical on-chip plasmonic devices will require efficient coupling of light into and out of surface plasmon waveguides over short length scales. In this letter, we report on low insertion loss for polymer-on-gold dielectric-loaded plasmonic waveguides end-coupled to silicon-on-insulator waveguides with a coupling efficiency of 79 ± 2% per transition at telecommunication wavelengths. Propagation loss is determined independently of insertion loss by measuring the transmission through plasmonic waveguides of varying length, and we find a characteristic surface-plasmon propagation length of 51 ± 4 μm at a free-space wavelength of λ = 1550 nm. We also demonstrate efficient coupling to whispering-gallery modes in plasmonic ring resonators with an average bending-loss-limited quality factor of 180 ± 8.

Formation of a novel hybrid-vector spatial plasmon-soliton in a Kerr slab embedded in-between metal plates is predicted and analyzed with a modified NLSE, encompassing hybrid vector field characteristics. Assisted by the transverse plasmonic effect, the self trapping dimension of the plasmon-soliton was substantially compressed (compared to the dielectrically cladded slab case) when reducing the slab width. The practical limitation of the Plasmon-soliton size reduction is determined by available nonlinear materials and metal loss. For the extreme reported values of nonlinear index change, we predict soliton with a cross section of 300nm×30nm (average dimension of 100nm).

A resonant guided wave network (RGWN) is an approach to optical materials design in which power propagation in guided wave circuits enables material dispersion. The RGWN design, which consists of power-splitting elements arranged at the nodes of a waveguide network, results in wave dispersion which depends on network layout due to localized resonances at several length scales in the network. These structures exhibit both localized resonances with Q ~ 80 at 1550 nm wavelength as well as photonic bands and band-gaps in large periodic networks at infrared wavelengths.

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