Graphene-Based Polarization-Independent Mid-Infrared Electro-Absorption Modulator Integrated in a Chalcogenide Glass Waveguide

Yong Zhou; Rongguo Lu; Guangbiao Wang; Jiangbo Lyu; Meng Tan; Liming Shen; Rui Lin; Zhonghua Yang; Yong Liu

doi:10.1186/s11671-021-03538-7

Graphene-Based Polarization-Independent Mid-Infrared Electro-Absorption Modulator Integrated in a Chalcogenide Glass Waveguide

Nanoscale Res Lett. 2021 May 8;16(1):80. doi: 10.1186/s11671-021-03538-7.

Authors

Yong Zhou¹, Rongguo Lu², Guangbiao Wang¹, Jiangbo Lyu¹, Meng Tan¹, Liming Shen¹, Rui Lin¹, Zhonghua Yang³, Yong Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China.
² School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, 610054, China. lurongguo@uestc.edu.cn.
³ Chongqing United Microelectronics Center, Chongqing, 401332, China.

Abstract

A polarization-insensitive graphene-based mid-infrared optical modulator is presented that comprised SiO₂/ Ge₂₃Sb₇S₇₀, in which two graphene layers are embedded with a semiellipse layout to support transverse magnetic (TM) and transverse electric (TE) polarizing modes with identical absorption. The key performance index for the polarization independent modulator is polarization-sensitivity loss (PSL). The waveguide of our device just supports basic TE and TM modes, and the PSL between two modes is of < 0.24 dB. The model can offer extinction ratio (ER) more than 16 dB and insertion loss less than 1 dB. The operation spectrum ranges from 2 to 2.4 μm with optical bandwidth of 400 nm. The 3 dB modulation bandwidth is as high as 136 GHz based on theoretical calculation.

Keywords: Chalcogenide glass; Graphene; Mid-infrared; Optical-modulator; Polarization-insensitive.

Abstract

Grants and funding