Gain-Assisted Propagation in a Plasmonic Waveguide at Telecom Wavelength

The spatial confinement of surface plasmon polaritons is a promising route for realizing optical on-board interconnects. However, mode losses increase with the confinement factor. To overcome this road block, we investigate propagation assisted by stimulated emission in a polymer strip-loaded plasmonic waveguide doped with nanocrystals. We achieve 27 % increase of the propagation length at telecom wavelength corresponding to a 160 cm-1 optical gain coefficient. Such a configuration is a step toward integrated plasmonic amplifiers. At the interface between molecular optics and solid state physics, molecular plasmonics combines chemical engi-neering and surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) properties to produce hybrid materials available for biosensing, data storage, photovoltaic cells, or integrated photonic applica-tions.1 In particular, the design of a surface plasmon circuitry is the object of intense research due to its ability to transfer optical information on a subwavelength scale. In the last years, a large set of passive plasmonic components were integrated to control and manipulat