All photonic components need metallic contact layers which inherently give rise to plasmon effects when light is involved. Although such effects have often been regarded as unwanted by causing electronic damping effects and radiation losses, recent research efforts in this field have shown that by clever engineering and by understanding the physical sources for such losses, plasmonic effects have the potential to enhance photonic components.

There is wealth of new plasmonic phenomena, such as enhanced transmission, optical field enhancement, and sub-wavelength focusing and the European research community has been leading in this field. By bring both academic and industrial players together, this paves the way for a new generation of photonic components, such as light emitting diodes (LEDs) and photodetectors, where their performance (e.g. external quantum efficiency, speed, and noise) is enhanced through plasmon effects.

The proposed project aims to prove the concept of plasmon enhanced photonic devices for industrial applications related to emission/detection. This goal can be translated into 3 distinct levels of objectives, ranging from:

• Exploratory plasmon research aimed at concepts and phenomena that can be exploited in the targeted applications.

• Investigation of specific plasmon enhancing structures for emitters and detectors, along with an investigation of the technologies to implement them.

• Achieve a proof of concept of plasmon enhanced photonics devices in 2 applications:

  (a) Inorganic LEDs: enhancing electrical to optical energy conversion.

  (b) Silicon photodetectors: Improving signal-to-noise ratio and increasing speed.

The project involves 6 major actors from theoretical and experimental research, as well as 2 large industrial leaders in the field of solid-state lighting, and photodetection.

© 2010 Plasmon Enhanced Photonics