Fundamental limits on the losses of phase and amplitude optical actuators

Zanotto, Simone; Morichetti, Francesco; Melloni, Andrea

doi:10.1002/lpor.201500101

Cited by 18 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Still, decreasing the optical mode volume, V m , introduces adverse effects, such as bending-and ohmic losses for polaritonic modes. It is therefore not straightforward to predict modulator performance scaled into sub-micron size regime [42], leading to a rigorous analysis of fundamental scaling laws for nanophotonics as a function of critical device length [38]. In this scaling analysis, we assume three types of optical cavities, (a) a traveling-wave ring resonator (RR) [43], (b) a metal-mirror based FP cavity [39], and (c) a plasmonic metal nano-particle (MNP) [44] (figure 2(b)), that enhance the fundamentally weak interaction between light and matter via the ratio of Q/V m , where Q is the cavity quality factor, V m is the effective volume of electromagnetic energy of a resonant mode.…”

Section: Modulator Scaling Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling vectors of attoJoule per bit modulators

Sorger

Amin

Khurgin

et al. 2017

J. Opt.

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Electro-optic modulation performs the conversion between the electrical and optical domain with applications in data communication for optical interconnects, but also for novel optical computing algorithms such as providing nonlinearity at the output stage of optical perceptrons in neuromorphic analog optical computing. While resembling an optical transistor, the weak lightmatter-interaction makes modulators 10 5 times larger compared to their electronic counterparts. Since the clock frequency for photonics on-chip has a power-overhead sweet-spot around tens of GHz, ultrafast modulation may only be required in long-distance communication, not for short on-chip links. Hence, the search is open for power-efficient on-chip modulators beyond the solutions offered by foundries to date. Here, we show scaling vectors towards atto-Joule per bit efficient modulators on-chip as well as some experimental demonstrations of novel plasmonic modulators with sub-fJ/bit efficiencies. Our parametric study of placing different actively modulated materials into plasmonic versus photonic optical modes shows that 2D materials overcompensate their miniscule modal overlap by their unity-high index change. Furthermore, we reveal that the metal used in plasmonic-based modulators not only serves as an electrical contact, but also enables low electrical series resistances leading to near-ideal capacitors. We then discuss the first experimental demonstration of a photon-plasmon-hybrid graphene-based electro-absorption modulator on silicon. The device shows a sub-1 V steep switching enabled by near-ideal electrostatics delivering a high 0.05 dB V −1 μm −1 performance requiring only 110 aJ/ bit. Improving on this demonstration, we discuss a plasmonic slot-based graphene modulator design, where the polarization of the plasmonic mode aligns with graphene's in-plane dimension; where a push-pull dual-gating scheme enables 2 dB V −1 μm −1 efficient modulation allowing the device to be just 770 nm short for 3 dB small signal modulation. Lastly, comparing the switching energy of transistors to modulators shows that modulators based on emerging materials and plasmonic-silicon hybrid integration perform on-par relative to their electronic counter parts. This in turn allows for a device-enabled two orders-of-magnitude improvement of electrical-optical co-integrated network-on-chips over electronic-only architectures. The latter opens technological opportunities in cognitive computing, dynamic data-driven applications systems, and optical analog computer engines including neuromorphic photonic computing.

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Section: Modulator Scaling Lawsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling vectors of attoJoule per bit modulators

Sorger

Amin

Khurgin

et al. 2017

J. Opt.

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“…The following points arise from Figure 2. First, the resonator’s total loss is always smaller (blue curve < red curve) due to the bypassing mechanism28 . The IL increases with L SPP (i.e.…”

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confidence: 99%

Low-loss plasmon-assisted electro-optic modulator

Haffner

Chelladurai

Fedoryshyn

et al. 2018

Nature

354

217

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For nearly two decades, the field of plasmonics1 - which studies the coupling of electromagnetic waves to the motion of free electrons in a metal2 - has sought to realize subwavelength optical devices for information technology3–6, sensing7,8, nonlinear optics9,10, optical nanotweezers11 and biomedical applications12. Although the heat generated by ohmic losses is desired for some applications (e.g. photo-thermal therapy), plasmonic devices for sensing and information technology have largely suffered from these losses inherent to metals13. This has led to a widespread stereotype that plasmonics is simply too lossy to be practical. Here, we demonstrate that these losses can be bypassed by employing “resonant switching”. In the proposed approach, light is only coupled to the lossy surface plasmon polaritons in the device’s off-state (in resonance) where attenuation is desired to ensure large extinction ratios and facilitate sub-ps switching. In the on state (out of resonance), light is prevented from coupling to the lossy plasmonic section by destructive interference. To validate the approach, we fabricated a plasmonic electro-optic ring modulator. The experiments confirm that low on-chip optical losses (2.5 dB), high-speed operation (>>100 GHz), good energy efficiency (12 fJ/bit), low thermal drift (4‰ K-1), and a compact footprint (sub-λ radius of 1 μm) can be realized within a single device. Our result illustrates the potential of plasmonics to render fast and compact on-chip sensing and communications technologies.

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“…However, decreasing the optical mode volume, V m , introduces adverse effects, for example, bending losses, and ohmic losses for polaritonic modes. It is therefore not straightforward to predict optoelectronic performance for device scaling into the nanoscale1314, and a rigorous analysis of fundamental scaling laws for nanophotonics as a function of critical device length is warranted. Here, we investigate the performances of four actively-controlled (electrically or optically) devices with respect to their scaling behavior: a light source, an electrical-to-optical (EO) data encoder typically in form of an electro-optic modulator, and a photodetector for the inverse OE conversion, along with a fourth device, which is a purely optical switch for all-optical information processing (Fig.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fundamental Scaling Laws in Nanophotonics

Liu

Sun

Majumdar

et al. 2016

Sci Rep

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The success of information technology has clearly demonstrated that miniaturization often leads to unprecedented performance, and unanticipated applications. This hypothesis of “smaller-is-better” has motivated optical engineers to build various nanophotonic devices, although an understanding leading to fundamental scaling behavior for this new class of devices is missing. Here we analyze scaling laws for optoelectronic devices operating at micro and nanometer length-scale. We show that optoelectronic device performance scales non-monotonically with device length due to the various device tradeoffs, and analyze how both optical and electrical constrains influence device power consumption and operating speed. Specifically, we investigate the direct influence of scaling on the performance of four classes of photonic devices, namely laser sources, electro-optic modulators, photodetectors, and all-optical switches based on three types of optical resonators; microring, Fabry-Perot cavity, and plasmonic metal nanoparticle. Results show that while microrings and Fabry-Perot cavities can outperform plasmonic cavities at larger length-scales, they stop working when the device length drops below 100 nanometers, due to insufficient functionality such as feedback (laser), index-modulation (modulator), absorption (detector) or field density (optical switch). Our results provide a detailed understanding of the limits of nanophotonics, towards establishing an opto-electronics roadmap, akin to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors.

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Fundamental limits on the losses of phase and amplitude optical actuators

Cited by 18 publications

References 42 publications

Scaling vectors of attoJoule per bit modulators

Scaling vectors of attoJoule per bit modulators

Low-loss plasmon-assisted electro-optic modulator

Fundamental Scaling Laws in Nanophotonics

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