Recent progress in graphene-based optical modulators on silicon photonics platform

Abstract

<p indent="0mm">Graphene is a 2D material which has attracted tremendous interest from academia and industry, due to its attractive electrical and optical properties. By integrating graphene onto silicon photonics platform, various high-performance electro-optic and thermo-optic modulators have been demonstrated. In this paper, such graphene-based optical modulators are reviewed. The concept and principle of optical modulations are firstly analyzed and then an overview of the developing trends of optical modulators is presented. Meanwhile, the performances of graphene-based optical modulators, including power consumptions and speeds of electro-optic modulators as well as tuning efficiencies of thermo-optic modulators, are then evaluated and discussed in detail. All these optical modulators would play important roles in a wide range of applications including telecom, interconnects, computing, quantum information processing, and beam steering.