NANO LETTERS
Compact, High-Speed and Power-Efficient Electrooptic Plasmonic Modulators
2009 Vol. 9, No. 12 4403-4411
Wenshan Cai, Justin S. White, and Mark L. Brongersma* Geballe Laboratory for AdVanced Materials, Stanford UniVersity, 476 Lomita Mall, Stanford, California 94305 Received August 19, 2009; Revised Manuscript Received October 5, 2009
ABSTRACT CMOS compatible electrooptic plasmonic modulators are slated to be key components in chip-scale photonic circuits. In this work, we investigate detailed design and optimization protocols for electrooptic plasmonic modulators that are suitable for free-space coupling and on-chip integration. The metallic structures in the proposed devices offer simultaneous electric and optical functions. The resonance-enhanced nonlinear interaction and submicrometer-footprint of these devices meet the stringent requirements for future CMOS modulators, allowing for high-speed operation (>100 GHz) with a decent modulation depth (>3 dB) and moderate insertion loss (
