Double-Teeth-Shaped Plasmonic Waveguide Electro-Optical Switches

An electro-optical switch based on a plasmonic T-shaped waveguide structure with a double-teeth-shaped waveguide filled with 4-dimethylamino-N-methyl-4-stilbazolium tosylate is proposed and numerically investigated. The Finite-difference time domain simulation results reveal that the structure can operate as a circuit switch by controlling the external voltages V1 and/or V2. The proposed structure can also operate as a variable optical attenuator, which can continuously attenuate tie power of a light beam from 6 dB to 30 dB by an external electrical field. The structure is of small size of a few hundred nanometers. Our results may open a possibility to construct nanoscale high-density photonic integration circuits. (cross-disciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)