Novel optical directional coupler based on surface plasmon polaritons

In this paper, finite difference time domain (FDTD) method and perfect matching layer (PML) absorbing boundary condition are adopted to simulate and analyze a novel optical directional coupler (ODC) based on surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs). Transmittance at each output port of the novel ODC with different coupling region lengths shows it follows the general regulations of a conventional ODC. Especially, its transverse size is of nanoscale. The extreme power position offset between the two output ports is proved to be connected with the real part of Ag's complex refractive index. The excess loss and isolation of the ODC are, respectively, 0.57 and 25.9 dB for 1550 nm telecommunication wavelength, when the length of the coupling region equals half of its coupling length. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.