Loss compensation by amplification in nanoplasmonic waveguides: Possibilities and limitations

The concomitant effects of the gain compensating loss process in a an optical waveguide are increased dissipation and signal to noise ratio degradation.This power dissipation is primarily due to the dissipative losses of the metal structures and Auger recombination in the quantum dots. The impact of amplifier mediated signal to noise ratio degradation and its effect on integration leads to a trade off between low power dissipation and signal to noise ratio. In this paper, the authors discussed loss compensation by amplification in nanoplasmonic waveguides.