Abstract
We propose new designs of plasmonic modulators, which can be used for dynamic signal switching in photonic integrated circuits. We study performance of a plasmonic waveguide modulator with bismuth ferrite as a tunable material. The bismuth ferrite core is sandwiched between metal plates (metal-insulator-metal configuration), which also serve as electrodes. The core changes its refractive index by means of partial in-plane to out-of-plane reorientation of ferroelectric domains in bismuth ferrite under applied voltage. As a result, guided modes change their propagation constant and absorption coefficient, allowing light modulation in both phase and amplitude control schemes. Due to high field confinement between the metal layers, existence of mode cut-offs for certain values of the core thickness, and near-zero material losses in bismuth ferrite, efficient modulation performance is achieved. For the phase control scheme, the π phase shift is provided by a 0.8-μm long device with propagation losses 0.29 dB/μm. For the amplitude control scheme, up to 38 dB/μm extinction ratio with 1.2 dB/μm propagation loss is predicted.
Highlights
Plasmonic structures were shown to have advantages for waveguiding and enhanced lightmatter interaction, since utilizing surface plasmon waves at a metal-dielectric interface allows efficient manipulation of light on the subwavelength scale [1,2,3,4]
We propose new designs of plasmonic modulators, which can be used for dynamic signal switching in photonic integrated circuits
We study performance of a plasmonic waveguide modulator with bismuth ferrite as a tunable material
Summary
Plasmonic structures were shown to have advantages for waveguiding and enhanced lightmatter interaction, since utilizing surface plasmon waves at a metal-dielectric interface allows efficient manipulation of light on the subwavelength scale [1,2,3,4]. TCOs provide a large change of refractive indexes and can be utilized for fast signal modulation on the order of several terahertz [7,17,18,19,20,21,34,35,36] They possess high losses, the modal propagation length is fairly small [17,18]. The extinction ratio up to 2.4 dB/μm was demonstrated for a hybrid plasmonic modulator, whose operation principle is based on metal – insulator phase transition in vanadium dioxide [31] Ferroelectric materials, such as bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3, BFO) or barium titanate (BaTiO3, BTO), possess promising features for optical modulation [39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47].
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