Efficient low dispersion compact plasmonic-photonic coupler.

We report efficient low dispersion light coupling into a silicon waveguide using an antenna consisting of two metallic nanoparticles. We find that strong multiple scattering between the nanoparticles dictates the coupling efficiency. We also explore directional coupling, by using different particles with a relative scattering phase, but find that optimum directionality corresponds to minimum efficiency. A dipole model highlights a subtle interplay between multiple scattering and directionality leading to a compromise allowing up to 30% transmission into a single direction. With a 500 nm bandwidth near infrared telecoms bands, group delay dispersion is sufficiently low to faithfully couple pulses as short as 50 fs.