Abstract

The field of plasmonics has received great attention during the past years. Plasmonic devices are characterized by their small electrical size which enabled researchers to overcome the challenge of the size mismatch between the bulky photonic devices and the small electronic circuits. Plasmonic metals are characterized by their lossy dielectric nature which is different from the highly conductive classical metals. Consequently, the design of plasmonic devices necessitates upgrading the existing solvers to take into consideration their material properties at the optical frequency range. In this thesis, a plasmonic transmission line mode solver is developed in which the propagation characteristics of plasmonic transmission lines/waveguides are calculated. More specifically, the solver calculates the propagation constant, losses, and mode profile(s) of the propagating mode(s). The transmission lines can have any topology and are assumed to be placed within a stack of flat layers. The solver is developed using the Method of Moments technique which is characterized by its tremendously decreased number of unknowns compared to the finite element/difference methods leading to much faster calculation time. The solver is tested on several plasmonic transmission lines of various topologies, number of metallic strips and/or surrounding media. These transmission lines include rectangular strip, circular strip, triangular strip, U-shaped strip, horizontally coupled strips, and vertically coupled strips. The obtained results are compared with those calculated by the commercial tool “CST”. Very good agreement between both solvers is achieved. The second line presented within this thesis is concerned with the design of plasmonic wire-grid nano-antenna arrays. The basic element of this array is a nano-rod, whose propagation characteristics are first obtained using the developed solver. The arrays are then optimized using “CST”. Within the context of this thesis, three nano-antenna arrays are proposed: a five-element wire-grid array, an eleven-element wire-grid array, and a novel circularly polarized wire-grid array. All of these arrays have high directivity and are suitable for inter-/intra-chip optical communication, where they replace the losing transmission lines.

Department

Physics Department

Graduation Date

6-1-2017

Submission Date

May 2017

First Advisor

Soliman, Ezzeldin

Committee Member 1

Vandenbosch, Guy

Committee Member 2

Gielen, Georges

Extent

138 p.

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Not necessary for this item

Comments

Foremost, I am incessantly thankful and indebted to Allah for guiding and supporting me all the time. No words would ever be enough to express my gratitude. With my greatest pleasure, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my advisors Prof. Dr. Ezzeldin Soliman, Prof. Dr. Guy Vandenbosch, and Prof. Dr. Georges Gielen. I am deeply grateful to Prof. Soliman for the patient guidance, endless support, continuous motivation, and being an extraordinary advisor. Since I joined his research group at AUC in 2008, I learnt a lot from his immense knowledge and invaluable experience. The enthusiasm and dedication he has for research is extremely inspiring. I am also very thankful to him for his confidence and persistence to tackle research challenges faced throughout the Ph.D. journey which has led to a fruitful research outcome. Prof. Soliman profoundly affected my academic life, where he invested in me lots of his time, and experience. He has the credit for introducing me to Prof. Vandenbosch and establishing the collaboration between AUC and KU Leuven. No words would ever be enough to express my indebtedness to him for such great efforts throughout the past years. My sincere appreciation is due to Prof. Vandenbosch who gave me the great chance to join his research group at KU Leuven. Since the first day, I benefited a lot from his very wide experience and continuous guidance. The regular meetings we had were very constructive where each time I learnt something new. I am extremely inspired by his dynamism, vision, and methodology to overcome any challenge. Prof. Vandenbosch has never saved any time or efforts towards advising or helping me very promptly. His very welcoming personality and sense of humour are unforgettable. I would like to express my thankfulness to Prof. Gielen for his efforts, motivation, and giving me the opportunity to spend an extra year at KU Leuven and benefit from the research facilities there. Many thanks are due to Prof. Dr. Femius Koenderink (FOM Institute, AMOLF) and Dr. Xuezhi Zheng (KU Leuven) for their remarkable efforts in the fabrication and characterization of the wire-grid nano-antennas, which is a crucial part of this research. I would also like to offer my special thanks to my examination committee members: Prof. Dr. Amr Shaarawi, Prof. Dr. Alaa Abdelmageed, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mohamed Swillam, Prof. Dr. Stefan Vandenwalle, and Dr. Vladimir Volskiy for their time, and efforts in revising my thesis. They provided me with very constructive feedback, helpful comments and insightful questions. I am very much thankful to Dr. Volskiy for his enormous help and significant efforts with me during the time I spent at KU Leuven. I wish also to express my deep thanks to all my professors who played a major role in my academic life. I would like to address a special thanks to Prof. Dr. Sherif Sedky for his invaluable help, guidance and for introducing me to Prof. Soliman at the early stage of my graduate studies. Regardless of being very busy, Prof. Sedky is very helpful and continually provides me with his sincere advice. I would like to extend my thankfulness to my colleagues and friends at both AUC and KU Leuven for their support and for the very nice time we spent together. Special thanks to my friends: Huda Alaa, Enas Kandil, Sarah El Shal, and Huda Alkhezaimy. I would like to acknowledge Mr. Yousef Jameel for the fellowship I obtained during my study at AUC. I would also like to thank FWO foundation for their support during my study at KU Leuven. My deepest heartfelt appreciation goes to my parents. I am indebted to them for the extraordinary efforts they are constantly exerting with me. Their endless confidence, care, support and prayers are always surrounding me. I was very pleased with their companion when they visited me in Leuven during my study. I would hardly be able to achieve any success without them. I warmly thank my sister Menna and her family for being in my life. My deepest thanks go to my nephews Ahmed and Maya Bahaa, who have a special clue to boost my mood especially at the hardest times. Finally, I would like to thank all who contributed directly or indirectly in bringing this thesis into completion. I would like to apologize if I was not able to mention all of them in person.

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