title: Active plasmonics in WDM traffic switching applications.
abstract: With metal stripes being intrinsic components of plasmonic waveguides, plasmonics provides a "naturally" energy-efficient platform for merging broadband optical links with intelligent electronic processing, instigating a great promise for low-power and small-footprint active functional circuitry. The first active Dielectric-Loaded Surface Plasmon Polariton (DLSPP) thermo-optic (TO) switches with successful performance in single-channel 10 Gb/s data traffic environments have led the inroad towards bringing low-power active plasmonics in practical traffic applications. In this article, we introduce active plasmonics into Wavelength Division Multiplexed (WDM) switching applications, using the smallest TO DLSPP-based Mach-Zehnder interferometric switch reported so far and showing its successful performance in 4×10 Gb/s low-power and fast switching operation. The demonstration of the WDM-enabling characteristics of active plasmonic circuits with an ultra-low power × response time product represents a crucial milestone in the development of active plasmonics towards real telecom and datacom applications, where low-energy and fast TO operation with small-size circuitry is targeted.
authors.affiliation: Department of Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece. sopa@csd.auth.gr
authors.forename: Sotirios
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Papaioannou
authors.forename: Dimitrios
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kalavrouziotis
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Vyrsokinos
authors.forename: Jean-Claude
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Weeber
authors.forename: Karim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hassan
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Markey
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dereux
authors.forename: Ashwani
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.forename: Sergey I
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Bozhevolnyi
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baus
authors.forename: Tolga
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tekin
authors.forename: Dimitrios
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Apostolopoulos
authors.forename: Hercules
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Avramopoulos
authors.forename: Nikos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pleros
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D007368:Interferometry / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D020349:Surface Plasmon Resonance / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods; D013685:Telecommunications / Q000295:instrumentation; D014159:Transducers