Ultra-compact branchless plasmonic interferometers

Miniaturization of functional optical devices and circuits is a key prerequisite for a myriad of applications ranging from biosensing to quantum information processing. This development has considerably been spurred by rapid developments within plasmonics exploiting its unprecedented ability to squeeze light into subwavelength scale. In this study, we investigate on-chip plasmonic systems allowing for synchronous excitation of multiple inputs and examine the interference between two adjacent excited channels. We present a branchless interferometer consisting of two parallel plasmonic waveguides that can be either selectively or coherently excited via ultra-compact antenna couplers. The total coupling efficiency is quantitatively characterized in a systematic manner and shown to exceed 15% for small waveguide separations, with the power distribution between the two waveguides being efficiently and dynamically shaped by adjusting the incident beam position. The presented design principle can readily be extended to other configurations, giving new perspectives for highly dense integrated plasmonic circuitry, optoelectronic devices, and sensing applications.