Multilevel light bending in nanoplasmonics

Nanoplasmonic optical interconnects is proposed to mitigate challenges facing electronics integration. It provides fast and miniaturized data channel that overcome the diffraction limit. We present a three dimensional plasmonic coupler that vertically bends the light to multilevel circuit configurations. It exploits light guiding in nanoscale plasmonic slot waveguides (PSWs). A triangularly-shaped plasmonic slot waveguide rotator is introduced to attain such coupling with good efficiency over a wide bandwidth. Using this approach, light propagating in a horizontal direction is easily converted and coupled to propagate in the vertical direction and vice versa. The proposed configuration is further extended to the design of a multilayer power divider/combiner with ultra-compact footprint that guides the light to multiple channels. A detailed study of the triangular rotator is demonstrated with the analysis of multiple configurations. This structure is suitable for efficient coupling and splitting in multilevel nano circuit environment.