Surface plasmon devices for applications in communication and signal processing

表面等离子体激元(SPP)是良好金属表面上的电磁波，与传导电子的振荡相耦合。表面极化激元本质上是一种二维激发，表面极化激元可以将光信号的处理问题从三维简化为二维。这大大简化了它，并为利用纳米结构表面和薄膜上的这些波的特性进行信号调节和控制提供了额外的机会。基于SPP的应用可以构成未来多波长光网络中信号处理应用的新器件的基础。随着这些网络向非线性和量子极限发展，需要新的设备功能来支持这些网络技术，并且这些设备必须紧凑和可集成。所需的功能是：用于将携带信号的数据解复用并路由到不同网络节点的可调色散特性；偏振选择特性-用于偏振多路复用以增加数据率并减少信道之间的非线性交互；光交换，其需要快速、高对比度的开关传递函数；自适应信号再生(3R重塑、重定时和重放以及2R变型-其执行重塑而不重定时)，用于在信道在网络中动态分配和路由时撤消任何获取的非线性和噪声损害。目前，这些功能中的大多数都需要分立的、批量的电子和光纤组件才能实现。如果所有这些都能在单个紧凑且可集成的器件中实现，那么这将是非常有吸引力的，理想的情况是具有一定的光学增益。如果基于表面等离子体激元的效应被应用，这是可能的，这允许实现新型的无源和有源光子器件，例如可调波长和偏振选择性结构，如果可以实现适当的设计。在这里，我们打算第一次演示和研究用于光网络的光子元件的基本工作原理，其功能是由纳米结构的金属表面和薄膜上的表面等离子激元波的特殊性质支撑的。将研究偏振和波长敏感应用以及用于放大SPP信号的有源器件，用于通信和信号处理应用。

Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are electromagnetic waves on a surface of good metals coupled to oscillations of conduction electrons. The surface polariton is intrinsically a two-dimensional excitation, and SPPs can be used to reduce the problem of optical signals' manipulation from three to two dimensions. This significantly simplifies it and introduces additional opportunity for signal conditioning and control using properties of these waves on nanostructured surfaces and thin films. The SPP-based applications can form the basis of new devices for signal processing applications in future multiwavelength optical networks. As these networks evolve towards the nonlinear and quantum limits, new device functionalities to support these network technologies are required, and these devices must be necessarily compact andintegrable. The functionalities required are: tuneable dispersive properties for demultiplexing and routing of data carrying signals to different network nodes; polarization-selective properties - for polarization multiplexing to increase the datarates and decrease nonlinear interaction between channels; optical switching which requires a fast, high-contrast on-off transfer function; adaptive signal regeneration (both 3R -reshaping, retiming and re-amplification and the 2R variant - which perform re-shaping without re-timing) for undoing any acquired non-linear and noise impairments as channels are dynamically allocated and routed around the network. Currently most of these functionalities require discrete, bulk electronic and fibre components to realise. It is very appealing if all of these could be implemented in a single compact and integrable device, ideally with some optical gain. This may be possible if surface plasmon polariton-based effects are deployed, which allow to achieve novel passive and active photonic devices such as tuneable wavelength and polarisation selective structures, if appropriate designs can be realised. Here we propose to demonstrate and investigate, for the first time, the basic principles of operation of photonic elements for optical networks with functionality underpinned by particular properties of surface plasmon polariton waves on the nanostructured metal surfaces and thin films. Polarisation and wavelength sensitive applications as well as active devices for amplification of SPP signals will be investigated, for applications in communications and signal processing.