Electrical source of surface plasmon polaritons based on hybrid Au–GaAs QW structures

In this paper, the electrical excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) based on a hybrid metal-semiconductor quantum well (QW) structure is investigated by finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations and experiments. The metal-QW hybrid structure is made of a metal grating structure deposited on a semiconductor QW with small separation between them. When electron-hole pairs are excited using current injection into the QW, SPPs are generated and coupled out by a metal grating. The spectral and imaging measurements were performed to confirm the electrical excitation of SPPs. The hybrid structure could serve as a plasmonic source for integrated plasmonic circuits.