Journal article

On-chip photonic Fourier transform with surface plasmon polaritons

Shan Shan Kou, Guanghui Yuan, Qian Wang, Luping Du, Eugeniu Balaur, Daohua Zhang, Dingyuan Tang, Brian Abbey, Xiao-Cong Yuan, Jiao Lin

LIGHT-SCIENCE & APPLICATIONS | CHINESE ACAD SCIENCES, CHANGCHUN INST OPTICS FINE MECHANICS AND PHYSICS | Published : 2016

Abstract

The Fourier transform (FT), a cornerstone of optical processing, enables rapid evaluation of fundamental mathematical operations, such as derivatives and integrals. Conventionally, a converging lens performs an optical FT in free space when light passes through it. The speed of the transformation is limited by the thickness and the focal length of the lens. By using the wave nature of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), here we demonstrate that the FT can be implemented in a planar configuration with a minimal propagation distance of around 10 μm, resulting in an increase of speed by four to five orders of magnitude. The photonic FT was tested by synthesizing intricate SPP waves with their Fo..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by National Natural Science Foundation of China


Awarded by Ministry of Science and Technology of China under National Basic Research Program of China (973) grant


Awarded by Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Australian Research Council


Awarded by Advanced Optics in Engineering Programme from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR)


Awarded by Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3


Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

This work is partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 61427819 and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China under National Basic Research Program of China (973) grant (No. 2015CB352004). The preparation of samples was performed in part at the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication (MCN) in the Victorian Node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility (ANFF). S.S.K. and J.L. are recipients of the Discovery Early Career Researcher Award funded by the Australian Research Council under projects DE120102352 and DE130100954, respectively. S.S.K. acknowledges the financial support from the La Trobe Research Focus Area (RFA) of Understanding Diseases, the Melbourne Collaboration Grant and the Interdisciplinary Seed Fund through the Melbourne Materials Institute (MMI). J.L. acknowledges the financial support from the Defence Science Institute, Australia. G.H.Y. acknowledges the Advanced Optics in Engineering Programme with Grant number 122-360-0009 from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 3 with Grant number MOE2011-T3-1-005. Q.W. acknowledges the fellowship support from the A*STAR. The authors would like to thank Dr Henry Cai (Carl Zeiss Pte Ltd, Singapore) for his assistance in preparing the samples.