Nonlinear manipulation of surface plasmons on graphene-TMDC Bragg reflectors

Abstract

In this study, we benefit from the nonlinear optical tunability of the graphene-transition metal dichalcogenide (G-TMDC) heterostructure and the strong confinement of the electromagnetic fields of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) on graphene in order to propose a highly tunable nonlinear optical Bragg reflector. Recently, two-dimensional (2D) TMDCs are the subject of intense researches because of their nonlinear optical properties at near infrared wavelengths which are very intriguing for various optical applications. We choose two kinds of 2D-TMDCs, MoSe2 and WSe2, with the strongest second order optical nonlinearity at near infrared range to properly design the periodic variation of the propagating SPP waves on the graphene layer. We utilize theoretical method of quantum electrostatic heterostructure to compute the dielectric function of graphene-TMDCs. Different nonlinearities of two TMDCs lead to noticeable tuning of the full width at half maximum (FWHM) and the central Bragg wavelength of the reflector which let design various optical devices. We design an add/drop filter, a nonlinear switch, and an AND/OR optical logic gate based on our proposed Bragg reflector. Our finite difference time domain numerical and transfer matrix analytical results reveal that by increment of the optical intensity up to 6 MW/cm2 which is below the pulse damage threshold of graphene, due to the second order nonlinearity, a 10-nm red-shift in central Bragg wavelength is observed and the 20-nm FWHM at linear regime decreases to 1.5 nm. The SPP intensities of 0.8 MW/cm2 and 1.53 MW/cm2 fulfill the requirements for AND and OR logical operations with 57 and 66.51 dB extinction ratios, respectively.