An investigation and analysis of plasmonic modulators: a review

Abstract

Abstract Plasmonics is an emerging and very advantageous technology which provides high speed and tiny size devices for fulfilling the demand of today’s high-speed world. SPPs are the information carrying elements in plasmonics, which are capable of breaking the diffraction limit. Plasmonics technology has shown its application in uncountable nanophotonic applications like switching, filtering, light modulation, sensing and in many more fields. Modulators are the key components of integrated photonic system. Various modulators which work on different effects are discussed in this study for providing a universal idea of modulators to researchers. Some useful plasmonic active materials are also discussed which are used in most of plasmonic modulators and other active devices. Previously, many researchers have worked on many kinds of modulators and switches, which operate on different kind of operating principles. For providing an overview about plasmonic modulators, their classification and their operation, we have discussed the state of art of some previously introduced modulators and switches which operates on electro-refractive effects and include electro-optic effect, Pockels effect, free charge carrier dispersion effect, phase change effect, elasto-optic effect, magneto-optic effect, and thermo-optic effect. Instead of different effects used in plasmonic switches and modulators different active materials like liquid crystals, graphene, vanadium di-oxide, chalcogenides, polymers, indium tin oxide, bismuth ferrite, barium titanate, and lithium niobate are also explained with their properties. Additionally, we also compared modulators based on different effects in terms of their design characteristics and performances.