Chip-scale nanophotonic switch based on a waveguide-metamaterial coupling mechanism

We demonstrate a simple and effective waveguide-metamaterial coupling mechanism to achieve switching control of the fundamental TE mode propagation in a silicon photonic stripe waveguide. The metamaterial is made of vertically stacked alternating ITO/Si layers and, theoretically, can be switched between transparent and absorptive regimes via modifying the carrier concentration of the ITO layers. In addition to its small footprint and CMOS-compatible fabrication, simulation results indicate that the optical switch features a high modulation depth (MD) of 27.8 dB, low insertion losses of 0.004 dB, and a wide operating bandwidth of 300 nm where the MD is > 24.6 dB. We expect that this mechanism is a good candidate for designing high-performance and ultra-compact photonic devices in densely integrated nanophotonic circuits and computation systems. (c) 2017 Optical Society of America