Ultra-compact directional couplers and Mach-Zehnder interferometers employing surface plasmon polaritons

Optical directional couplers and Mach-Zehnder interferometers employing surface plasmon polaritons are proposed and their characteristics are analyzed numerically using a finite-difference time-domain method. It is shown that these devices can have transverse size smaller than the incident wavelength and can then be regarded as true subwavelength photonic elements. The ultra-compact characteristic of these devices can be utilized as a basis of next generation of integrated photonic circuits. Furthermore, calculations also show that these devices behave differently from their traditional all-dielectric counterparts. For the proposed optical directional coupler, the phase difference between the two output ports will no longer be 90 degrees even when the two ports have the same power outputs. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.