Photonic Skin-Depth Engineering for Transparent Sub-diffraction Photonics

The miniaturization of optical devices with low power consumption on CMOS platforms can pave the way for densely integrated photonic circuits. A major roadblock in this process is the large skin depth of evanescent light waves generated in nanoscale light confinement. In this paper, we demonstrate the roll of multilayer anisotropic alldielectric metamaterials in the control of evanescent waves. This fundamentally new approach uses optical waveguides with an average index higher in the cladding compared to that of the core. It marks a completely different approach of light confinement compared to photonic crystal and slot waveguides. These devices are a scalable process and can be implemented on a CMOS platform which will lead to a large impact on future devices designs in photonic integrated circuits.