A compact plasmonic MOS-based electro-optic switch

Author

Chenran Ye ; Zhuoran Li ; Soref, Richard ; Sorger, Volker J.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., George Washington Univ., Washington, DC, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

28-31 Oct. 2013

Firstpage

218

Lastpage

220

Abstract

We report on a three-waveguide electro-optic switch for ultra-compact photonic integrated circuits and data routing. The device features a plasmonic MOS mode for enhanced light-matter-interactions. The switching mechanism originates from a capacitor-like design where the refractive index of the active medium, Indium-Tin-Oxide (ITO), is altered via shifting the plasma frequency due to carrier modulation inside this waveguide-based MOS design. This modulation controls the transmission direction of TM polarized light into either a CROSS or BAR waveguide port. For a tolerable insertion loss of 3 (8) dB, the switch provides a cross-to-bar state discrimination of 4 (10) times. The device can be integrated into a Silicon-on-Insulator platform to keep manufacturing costs low.

Keywords

electro-optical switches; integrated optics; optical communication; optical modulation; refractive index; telecommunication network routing; capacitor-like design; carrier modulation; compact plasmonic MOS mode; data routing; enhanced light-matter-interactions; plasma frequency; refractive index; switching mechanism; three-waveguide electro-optic switch; ultra-compact photonic integrated circuits; Couplings; Indium tin oxide; Optical polarization; Optical switches; Optical waveguides; Plasmons; MOS; electro-optic switch; light-matter-interaction; plasmonic; silicon-on-insulator;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Photonics (MWP), 2013 International Topical Meeting on

Conference_Location

Alexandria, VA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWP.2013.6724059

Filename

6724059