Information Capacity of Spoof Plasmon Interconnects

Spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) mode realized in planar, patterned conductors to manage light beyond diffraction limit at a chosen frequency drew significant attention of late. We discuss that, SSPP interconnect can be a hybrid technology of electronics and optics that realizes electromagnetic mode propagation confined on an electrically conductive surface. Since an electrical ground is not required for spoof plasmon propagation, SSPP interconnect can constitute a terascale inter-chip communication channel overcoming any RC limitation imposed on the bandwidth. We have investigated theoretical limits on the information transfer capability and quantified the trade-off relation between cross-talk limited bandwidth density and information propagation length in SSPP based communication networks.