Utilizing of holographic principles for efficient excitation of plasmonic waveguide

Plasmonic and surface wave optics are actively developing fields of modern optics. They are widely applicable for Raman spectroscopy, chemical- and biosensing, and integrated optics (optical interconnects, modulators,... [ view full abstract ]

Plasmonic and surface wave optics are actively developing fields of modern optics. They are widely applicable for Raman spectroscopy, chemical- and biosensing, and integrated optics (optical interconnects, modulators, waveguide resonators, couplers, filters, etc.) where special interest is focused on the highly localized waves.

Studies and applications of surface waves and plasmonic waves with high degree of transverse mode localization encounter the problem of efficient mode excitation with far field. This difficulty is caused by the mismatch between the field distribution of the waveguide mode, which is localized on a subwavelength scale, and the field of the exciting radiation, the transverse localization of which is not less than a few wavelengths. The problem of efficient optical excitation of plasmonic waveguides is still far from final solution.

In this report we present the investigation of application of the holographic principle to excitation of various surface waves and plasmonic waves, in particular to excitation of plasmonic waveguides. We show that the excitation by use of surface or volume holograms can be several times more efficient than usage of excitation systems based on periodic diffraction gratings. Holograms help us to get the best phase matching and thus they help to match the field distribution of the waveguide mode with the field distribution of the incident wave.