Array of plasmonic Vivaldi antennas coupled to silicon waveguides for wireless networks through on-chip optical technology - WiNOT

Abstract

Optical technology applied to on-chip wireless communication is particularly promising to overcome the performance limitations of the state-of-the-art networks on-chip. A key enabling component for such applications is the plasmonic antenna coupled to conventional silicon waveguides, which can guarantee full compatibility with standard optical circuitry. In this paper, we propose an antenna array configuration based on tilted plasmonic Vivaldi antennas coupled to a silicon waveguide. The details of the single antenna and of the array design are reported. The radiation characteristics of the array are suitable for on-chip point-to-point communication, i.e. in-plane maximum gain of 14.70 dB for an array with five antennas. The array exploits a travelling wave feeding scheme and, therefore, is compact in size (about 3.5 µm x 8.7 µm).

Key Roles of Plasmonics in Wireless THz Nanocommunications—A Survey

“…Moreover, hybrid wireless optical on chip communication takes advantage of the entire WDM spectrum when propagating in the optical wired links, guaranteeing even higher multiple capacities, as required by intra-chip communications [43]. Various configurations of plasmonic nanoantennas for supporting wireless-optical on chip communication have been proposed in the literature, such as plasmonic horn nanoantennas [44], a directional plasmonic Yagi-Uda nanoantenna placed on a dielectric waveguide [45], or a plasmonic nanoantenna array on a dielectric waveguide [46], or various configurations of plasmonic Vivaldi antennas (double, or an array of them) to name but a few [47,48]. Plasmonic antennas will be described more analytically in the upcoming section.…”

“…By increasing the number of Vivaldi antennas, an increase in the directivity and the gain is anticipated too. Hence, double Vivaldi broadside antenna [47], and antenna array configuration based on tilted plasmonic Vivaldi antennas [48], are improving the total antenna radiation performance. A double Vivaldi antenna and its coupling details are shown in Figure 14a All these Vivaldi hybrid structures are characterized as SOI integrated as the optical signals could be propagated through silicon waveguides and plasmonic nanoantennas wireless links, thus avoiding integration of electronic devices and electro-optical conversions, and reducing complexity and energy costs [47].…”

“…By increasing the number of Vivaldi antennas, an increase in the directivity and the gain is anticipated too. Hence, double Vivaldi broadside antenna [47], and antenna array configuration based on tilted plasmonic Vivaldi antennas [48], are improving the total antenna radiation performance. A double Vivaldi antenna and its coupling details are shown in Figure 14a,b respectively.…”

Multi-Level Analysis of On-Chip Optical Wireless Links

“…The behavior is reciprocal when the antenna is used as receiver. The antenna array configuration is instead represented in Figure 3b [37], where multiple Vivaldi antennas are fed by the same Si waveguide. Each antenna is 90 • tilted with respect to the Si waveguide.…”

“…Although the details on the design and on the radiation characteristics of the two antenna configurations are provided in [9,37] the antennas gain function in the φ = 0 • (xz) and in the θ = 90 • (xy) planes is plotted in Figure 4a and in Figure 4b for the sake of self-consistency. In particular, the reported curves refer to the single Vivaldi antenna (black continuous), and to the antenna array with N = 3 (blue dotted) and with N = 5 (green dashed) elements.…”