Gold nanowire plasmonic mode photo-thermal modulation at telecom wavelengths

International audience; Thermo-optical switches relying on polymer based plasmonic waveguides have been recently demonstrated for high-bit rate routing. In these devices, the active thermo-optical medium is polymer with a large thermo-optical coefficient. However, so far the role of the thermo-optical properties of the metal sustaining the plasmon mode has not been considered in details. In this study, we investigate the thermo-optical properties of plasmonic modes sustained by different purely metallic structures at telecom wavelengths. We first consider the basic situation of a SPPs mode traveling along a simple gold/air interface. By measuring the modulation depth of the SPPs signal when…