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Theory of quantum-dot-based loss compensation of surface plasmon-polaritons for plasmonic signal processing

SY. SHAFIEI1,* , R. YADIPOUR1, H. BAGHBAN1

Affiliation

  1. Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran

Abstract

In this paper, a theoretical model has been developed to calculate the loss compensation of the surface plasmon-polariton (SPP) propagation loss in a plasmonic structure. Quantum dots (QDs) have been considered as the active medium and a multi-layer structure has been proposed for analyzing the SPP propagation loss. The multi-layer structure of QDs is composed of a quartz substrate, a 50-nm-thick gold film, and a thin layer of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) with embedded CdSe QDs. An optical pump is used to achieve SPP amplification. First, we develop a theoretical model taking into account the non-uniformity of the pump irradiance distribution. The pump distribution in the structure is calculated by the transfer matrix method. To calculate the signal propagating distribution, rate equations for QSs have been used in the gain layer structure. Finally, by considering the aspects and combination of all mentioned equations, we simulate the whole structure and sweep design parameters to achieve the best performance. A maximum SPP loss compensation of about 40% is observed in the presented structure. This study presents a feasible method to alleviate the high loss in plasmonic waveguides and the introduced model can be used to design plasmonic integrated circuits with loss values comparable with optical integrated circuits..

Keywords

Plasmonic, Plasmonic amplifier, Quantum dot, Rate equation, Plasmonic laser.

Submitted at: April 20, 2023
Accepted at: Oct. 14, 2025

Citation

SY. SHAFIEI, R. YADIPOUR, H. BAGHBAN, Theory of quantum-dot-based loss compensation of surface plasmon-polaritons for plasmonic signal processing, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 27, Iss. 9-10, pp. 420-426 (2025)