Dihedron dielectric loaded surface plasmon athermal polarization converter

We investigate numerically a novel plasmonic polarization converter relying on the excitation of a so-called dihedron dielectric loaded plasmon polariton. The dihedron dielectric loaded waveguide consists of a dielectric ridge implemented at the inner corner of a metal-coated dielectric step. For a dielectric ridge with a square cross section, the plasmon polariton modes supported by each side of the metallized step hybridize to create supermodes with crossed polarizations. We show that the two supermodes can be operated in a dual-mode interferometer configuration to perform an efficient (24 dB) TE-TM/TM-TE polarization conversion over typical distances below 30 mu m at telecommunications wavelengths. In addition, on the basis of the thermo-optical properties of our device, we find that the dihedron plasmonic polarization converter is temperature insensitive. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America