Noble metal colloids in a dielectric matrix material exhibit surface plasmon resonance at visible wavelengths, which is well known to lead to intense coloration effects. The absorption peak at the resonance frequency is linked to a change of the refractive index even at wavelengths only marginally affected by the absorption. We explore the potential of using this refractive index change for creating dielectric waveguides by means of a versatile photocatalytic silver deposition process. The specific planar waveguide structure consists of a thin high refractive index layer comprising the photocatalyst and the silver colloids, topped by a cladding layer, on a low refractive index glass substrate. Using grating coupling, waveguide modes guided predominantly in the cladding could be demonstrated using red light with acceptable losses down to the 10 dB/cm range. However, the change of the effective refractive index that can be achieved with silver colloids at this low attenuation is below 10-4 , only sufficient for very weak lateral guiding. The fundamental mode centered on the high refractive index layer would be more sensitive to the amount of silver colloids, but this applies to both the effective refractive index and the attenuation. A significant reduction of the bandwidth of the surface plasmon resonance peak would be required to improve this trade-off. So far, the greater potential seems to be in the integration of areas containing silver colloids for sensors or nonlinear devices with plasmonic waveguides defined by fully metallized areas.
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