Ultra-Compact High-Speed Electro-Optical Modulator with Extremely Low Energy Consumption Based on Polymer-Filled Hybrid Plasmonic Waveguide

In this paper, we propose an ultra-compact high-speed electro-optical modulator with extremely low energy consumption based on silicon-polymer-metal hybrid plasmonic waveguide. Spatial confinement of the optical mode of the hybrid plasmonic waveguide and its dependence on small refractive index changes of the polymer is exploited to control the resonance wavelength in a coupled waveguide ring resonator structure and realize optical intensity modulation. Our theoretical exploration and numerical simulations show that with proper design of the hybrid plasmonic waveguide, modulation speed of over 1 THz with modulation depth of similar to 8 dB and extremely low energy consumption of similar to 3.6 fJ/bit is achievable in a structure with overall footprint in the order of 11 mu m(2).