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Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics

The balance between extinction ratio (ER) and insertion loss (IL) dictates strict trade-off when designing travelling-wave electro-optic modulators. This in turn entails significant compromise in device footprint (L(3dB)) or energy consumption (E). In this work, we report a nanoscale modulator archi...

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Autores principales: Lin, Charles, Helmy, Amr S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4507171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26189813
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep12313
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author Lin, Charles
Helmy, Amr S.
author_facet Lin, Charles
Helmy, Amr S.
author_sort Lin, Charles
collection PubMed
description The balance between extinction ratio (ER) and insertion loss (IL) dictates strict trade-off when designing travelling-wave electro-optic modulators. This in turn entails significant compromise in device footprint (L(3dB)) or energy consumption (E). In this work, we report a nanoscale modulator architecture that alleviates this trade-off while providing dynamic reconfigurability that was previously unattainable. This is achieved with the aide of three mechanisms: (1) Utilization of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) effect, which maximizes the attainable attenuation that an ultra-thin active material can inflict on an optical mode. (2) Non-resonant coupled-plasmonic structure which supports modes with athermal long-range propagation. (3) Triode-like biasing scheme for flexible manipulation of field symmetry and subsequently waveguide attributes. By electrically inducing indium tin oxide (ITO) to be in a local ENZ state, we show that a Si/ITO/HfO(2)/Al/HfO(2)/ITO/Si coupled-plasmonic waveguide can provide amplitude modulation with ER = 4.83 dB/μm, IL = 0.03 dB/μm, L(3dB) = 622 nm, and E = 14.8 fJ, showing at least an order of magnitude improvement in modulator figure-of-merit and power efficiency compared to other waveguide platforms. Employing different biasing permutations, the same waveguide can then be reconfigured for phase and 4-quadrature-amplitude modulation, with actively device length of only 5.53 μm and 17.78  μm respectively.
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spelling pubmed-45071712015-07-21 Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics Lin, Charles Helmy, Amr S. Sci Rep Article The balance between extinction ratio (ER) and insertion loss (IL) dictates strict trade-off when designing travelling-wave electro-optic modulators. This in turn entails significant compromise in device footprint (L(3dB)) or energy consumption (E). In this work, we report a nanoscale modulator architecture that alleviates this trade-off while providing dynamic reconfigurability that was previously unattainable. This is achieved with the aide of three mechanisms: (1) Utilization of epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) effect, which maximizes the attainable attenuation that an ultra-thin active material can inflict on an optical mode. (2) Non-resonant coupled-plasmonic structure which supports modes with athermal long-range propagation. (3) Triode-like biasing scheme for flexible manipulation of field symmetry and subsequently waveguide attributes. By electrically inducing indium tin oxide (ITO) to be in a local ENZ state, we show that a Si/ITO/HfO(2)/Al/HfO(2)/ITO/Si coupled-plasmonic waveguide can provide amplitude modulation with ER = 4.83 dB/μm, IL = 0.03 dB/μm, L(3dB) = 622 nm, and E = 14.8 fJ, showing at least an order of magnitude improvement in modulator figure-of-merit and power efficiency compared to other waveguide platforms. Employing different biasing permutations, the same waveguide can then be reconfigured for phase and 4-quadrature-amplitude modulation, with actively device length of only 5.53 μm and 17.78  μm respectively. Nature Publishing Group 2015-07-20 /pmc/articles/PMC4507171/ /pubmed/26189813 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep12313 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Lin, Charles
Helmy, Amr S.
Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics
title Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics
title_full Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics
title_fullStr Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics
title_full_unstemmed Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics
title_short Dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics
title_sort dynamically reconfigurable nanoscale modulators utilizing coupled hybrid plasmonics
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4507171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26189813
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep12313
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