A plasmonic dimple lens for nanoscale focusing of light.

Focusing electromagnetic energy to subwavelength dimensions has become an increasingly active field of research for a variety of applications such as heat-assisted magnetic recording, nanolithography, and nanoscale optical characterization of biological cells and single molecules using the near-field scanning optical microscopy technique. Double-sided surface plasmons in a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) geometry can have very small wavelengths for dielectric of thickness of less than 10 nm. A tapered dielectric structure sandwiched between metal can be used to efficiently couple electromagnetic energy from free space photons to the plasmonic wavelengths at the nanoscale.

Time-gated filter for sideband suppression.

A time-gated filter is demonstrated that converts a double-sideband radio-frequency (rf) waveform on a pulsed optically chirped carrier into a single sideband (SSB) waveform. Electrical technology to produce SSB modulation is currently limited to rfs less than 20 GHz, while our filter operates up to the maximum frequency available from optical modulators. Application of the filter in photonic time-stretch analog-to-digital converters (TS-ADCs) mitigates severe frequency fading owing to the dispersion penalty that limits the rf input signal bandwidth and time aperture.

Phase ripple correction: theory and application.

Spectral phase ripple associated with novel dispersive devices can distort broadband optical signals. We present a digital postprocessing algorithm to correct for this distortion by exploiting the static deterministic nature of the ripple. This algorithm is demonstrated with empirical data for several systems employing chirped fiber Bragg gratings (CFBGs).

Plasmonic interconnects versus conventional interconnects: a comparison of latency, crosstalk and energy costs.

The continued scaling of integrated circuits will require advances in intra-chip interconnect technology to minimize delay, density of energy dissipation and cross-talk. We present the first quantitative comparison between the performance of metal wire interconnects, operated in the traditional manner by electric charge and discharge, versus the performance of metal wires operated as surface plasmon waveguides. Surface plasmon wire waveguides have the potential to reduce signal delay, but the high confinement required for low cross-talk amongst high density plasmon wire interconnects significantly increases energy dissipation per transmitted bit, above and beyond that required for electric charge/discharge interconnects at the same density.