IMEC reports a method to integrate high-speed CMOS electronics and nanophotonic circuitry based on plasmonic effects. Metal-based nanophotonics (plasmonics) can squeeze light into nanoscale structures that are much smaller than conventional optic components. Plasmonic technology, today still in an experimental stage, has the potential to be used in future applications such as nanoscale optical interconnects for high performance computer chips, extremely sensitive (bio)molecular sensors, and highly efficient thin-film solar cells. When nanostructures are illuminated with visible to near-infrared light, the excitation of collective oscillations of conduction electrons – called surface plasmons – generates strong optical resonances. Moreover, surface plasmons are capable of capturing, guiding, and focusing electromagnetic energy in deep-subwavelength length-scales, i.e. smaller than the diffraction limit of the light. This is unlike conventional dielectric optical waveguides, which are limited by the wavelength of the light. Nanoscale plasmonic circuits would allow massive parallel routing of optical information on ICs. But eventually that high-bandwidth optical information has to be converted to electrical signals. To make such ICs that combine high-speed CMOS electronics and plasmonic circuitry, efficient and fast interfacing components are needed that couple the signals from plasmon waveguides to electrical devices. As an important stepping stone to such components, IMEC has now demonstrated integrated electrical detection of highly confined short-wavelength surface plasmon polaritons in metal-dielectric-metal plasmon waveguides. Because the waveguide and the embedded photodetector have the same nanoscale dimensions, there is an efficient coupling of the surface plasmons into the photodetector and an ultrafast response. IMEC has set up a number of experiments.
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