Bismuth ferrite for active control of surface plasmon polariton modes

We propose and investigate several layouts of metal-insulator-metal waveguide with active core which can be utilized for dynamic switching in photonic integrated circuits. The active material, bismuth ferrite (BiFeO
₃
), is sandwiched between metal plates and changes its refractive index through partial switching of ferroelectric domain orientation under applied voltage. Both phase and amplitude modulations are envisaged.