Anisotropic slot waveguides with bulk transition metal dichalcogenides for crosstalk reduction and high-efficiency mode conversion.

Abstract

Conventional slot waveguides (CSWs) consisting of an isotropic low-index material sandwiched by two high-index silicon wires have been extensively used in functional photonic devices, including chemical sensing, optical modulating, and all-optical signal processing, due to its significantly enhanced electric field perpendicular to the interfaces in the slot layer. However, there are two drawbacks to be improved if the CSWs are used for signal transmission in photonic integrated circuits, including the crosstalk between waveguides and direct butting mode conversion efficiency (MCE) to a silicon (Si)-strip waveguide. In this study, we propose an anisotropic SW with bulk transition metal dichalcogenide (ASWTMD) to relieve the two shortcomings by replacing the isotropic low-index slot layer with a bulk molybdenum disulfide layer having a high refractive index and giant optical anisotropy. We demonstrated the crosstalk reduction (CR) of the proposed ASWTMD by analyzing the mode profile, power confinement, and coupling strength. We also investigated the MCE by examining the mode overlap ratio and power evolution. The proposed ASWTMD shows significant CR and superior MCE for the transverse electric and transverse magnetic modes compared to those of a CSW with a SiO2-slot layer. The present design paves the possible extensibility to other transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) for designing state-of-the-art TMD-based photonic devices exploiting their extraordinary optical properties.