Investigation of Bragg gratings in planar hybrid metal–insulator–metal plasmonic waveguide using graded profile

Abstract

The design of integrated components using hybrid plasmonics is attracting a widespread interest in the recent years. This work proposes a consistent approach to design Bragg gratings employing the concept of graded profile in a planar hybrid metal–insulator–metal plasmonic waveguide. A comparative study of various width modulations such as triangular, parabolic and rectangular profiles is presented. The most striking observation is that Bragg gratings with parabolic profile offer best performance in terms of compact track length (3.48 μm), wide stopband (168 nm) and good transmission characteristics with fewer side lobes. Additionally, a nanocavity analysis is performed by introducing a defect length of 140 nm in the Bragg grating structure with parabolic profile. A peak transmission of 89% is observed at the resonance wavelength of 1550 nm.