Design of ultra-small mode area all-dielectric waveguides exploiting the vectorial nature of light

Abstract

The wave nature and diffraction of light pose a significant bottleneck to the continued performance and efficiency scaling of a wide variety of integrated photonic devices, often necessitating solutions based on resonance, slow-light, or plasmonics to derive enhanced light-matter interaction. Here, we introduce all-dielectric waveguides that exploit the vectorial nature of light to achieve strong subdiffraction confinement in high index dielectrics, enabling characteristic mode dimensions below λ 0 2 / 1000 without metals or plasmonics. We further show how these ultra-small mode areas may coincide or diverge from the nonlinear effective mode area. The work opens the door to new types of waveguide-based devices featuring strong near-field confinement, Purcell factors, and nonlinear effects, with broad applications spanning classical and quantum optics.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Aug 21, 2020
Source ID
10.1364/ol.394848

Entities

People

  • Judson D Ryckman
  • Nazmus Sakib

Organizations

  • Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Optical Physics and Photonics.
  • Quantum Dot Semiconductor Device Photonics and Graphene Optoelectronic Materials and THz Physics.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Quantum Computing