Enabling inter- and intra-chip optical wireless interconnect by the aid of hybrid plasmonic leaky-wave optical antennas

In this paper, we propose a new method to provide optical link in Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs). The proposed method uses two hybrid plasmonic leaky-wave optical antennas, operating at the standard optical telecommunication wavelength of 1.55 μm, to provide inter-chip interconnect between two layers in a photonic chip and also intra-chip interconnect between two different photonic ICs. Linearly tapered couplers are designed to couple the optical signal from the silicon waveguide to the hybrid plasmonic antennas. The performance of the proposed optical link is verified using numerical full wave simulation. The proposed structure is planar, and can be fabricated using standard CMOS technology which makes it the superior candidate for realization of future multi-layered Photonic Integrated Circuits.