Spoof Plasmon Interconnects—Communications Beyond RC Limit

The inception of spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) mode realized in planar, patterned conductors to manage light beyond diffraction limit at a chosen frequency garnered significant attention of late. We show that, an SSPP channel can be chosen to act in two distinct ways: first, as a regular <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$RC$ </tex-math></inline-formula> limited electrical interconnect at low frequencies; and second, as an exotic, beyond <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$RC$ </tex-math></inline-formula> limit communication channel near its resonant frequency by binding the electromagnetic field on its surface to the elimination of capacitance <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$C$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. A dynamic transformation between these two modes can constitute an energy economic, tera-scale inter-chip hybrid communication network. We have investigated theoretical limits on the information transfer capability of SSPP interconnects. We show that, a geometry dependent tradeoff relation between cross-talk limited bandwidth density and information traveling length emerges in SSPP-based communication networks. According to our analysis, a bandwidth density of 1 Gbps/<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> is attainable in SSPP communication network with ~ 10-mm information transfer distance, where each channel can carry ~ 300-Gb/s information with nominal cross-talk.

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