2023/05/19 by Zhizhen Ma, Ma, Zhizhen, Behrouz Movahhed Nouri +9
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Optics (physics.optics) #Photonic and Optical Devices #Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2305.11992
openalex publication_date 2023/05/19 · openalex created_date 2023/05/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The ability to modulate light using 2-dimensional (2D) materials is fundamentally challenged by their small optical cross-section leading to miniscule modal confinements in diffraction-limited photonics despite intrinsically high electro-optic absorption modulation (EAM) potential given by their strong exciton binding energies. However the inherent polarization anisotropy in 2D-materials and device tradeoffs lead to additional requirements with respect to electric field directions and modal confinement. A detailed relationship between modal confinement factor and obtainable modulation strength including definitions on bounding limits are outstanding. Here we show that the modal confinement factor is a key parameter determining both the modulation strength and the modulator extinction ratio-to-insertion loss metric. We show that the modal confinement and hence the modulation strength of a single-layer modulated 2D material in a plasmonically confined mode is able to improve by more than 10x compared to diffraction-limited modes. Combined with the strong-index modulation of graphene the modulation strength can be more than 2-orders of magnitude higher compared to Silicon-based EAMs. Furthermore modal confinement was found to be synergistic with performance optimization via enhanced light-matter-interactions. These results show that there is room for scaling 2D material EAMs with respect to modal engineering towards realizing synergistic designs leading to high-performance modulators.