The integration of optical metamaterials within silicon integrated photonic circuitry bears significantly potential in the design of low-power, nanoscale footprint, all-optical functionalities. We propose a novel concept and provide detailed analysis of an on-chip ultrafast all-optical modulator based on an hyperbolic metamaterial integrated in a silicon waveguide. The anisotropic metamaterial based on gold nanorods is placed on top of the silicon waveguide to form a modulator with a 300x440x600 nm(3) footprint. For the operating wavelength of 1.5 μm, the optimized geometry of the device has insertion loss of about 5 dB and a modulation depth of 35% with a sub-ps switching rate. The switching energy estimated from nonlinear transient dynamic numerical simulations is 3.7 pJ/bit when the transmission is controlled optically at a wavelength of 532 nm, resonant with the transverse plasmonic mode of the metamaterial. The switching mechanism is based on the control of the hybridization of eigenmodes in the metamaterial slab and the Si waveguide.

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Anisotropic metamaterials with hyperbolic dispersion can be used to design waveguides with unusual properties. We show that, in contrast to planar waveguides, geometric confinement leads to coupling of ordinary (forward) and extraordinary (backward) modes and formation of hybrid waveguided modes, which near the crossing point may exhibit slow, stopped or superluminal behavior accompanied by very strong group velocity dispersion. These modes can be used for designing stopped-light nanolasers for nanophotonic applications and dispersion-facilitated signal reshaping in telecom applications.

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