A silicene-based plasmonic electro-optical switch in THz range

Abstract

The first design and simulationof a silicene-based optical switch in the frequency range of 20 to 50 THz are presented. Silicene is a monolayer of silicon atoms stacked together in the shape of a honeycomb that has outstanding features such as compatibility with current technology, strong spin-orbital coupling, and attractive optical properties. The proposed switch consists of a silicene waveguide encapsulated between layers of Al2O3 which transmits the input signal by emitting surface plasmon polaritons. To control the ON and OFF switching modes using impurities and DC voltage, we change the chemical potential of silicene. The main advantages of the proposed switch over similar graphene types are fewer losses, broadband frequency range, more compatibility with current technology,and also due to the encapsulation of silicene between Al2O3, the waveguide is isolated from the environment. Also, Q-factor, insertion loss, and extinction ratio for the proposed switch are 189, 0.39 dB, and 51 dB, respectively.

First designing of a silicene-based optical MOSFET with outstanding performance

“…Elsewhere, two optical switches have recently been proposed based on silicene. The first one was a plasmonic electro-optical switch based on a silicene waveguide encapsulated between layers of Al 2 O 3 39 , providing a better performance compared to its graphene counterpart. The second switch was designed based on metamaterials, utilizing graphene-silicene-graphene (G-S-G) structure to control the switching of the transmitted light 40 .…”

Non-equilibrium Green’s function approach for simulation asymmetric source-drain silicene-based photodetectors

“…It is a matter of importance to improve the current photoelectronic systems, widening the response spectrum, reducing the production cost, and enhancing efficiency, via novel materials and ideas. As a promising candidate for future nano/optoelectronic components, silicene has attracted tremendous attention during the last decades, because of its compatibility with the present semiconductor industry [4,5]. Silicene as a buckled 2D material, fabricated from silicon atoms, which exhibits many excellent properties like quantum Hall effect, halfmetallicity, ferromagnetism, giant magnetoresistance, superconductivity [6], and applications such as molecule sensing, hydrogen purification, hydrogen storage, and solar cells [7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”