Invited Paper
Plasmonic Modulators and Switches

Juerg Leuthold Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Christian Haffner Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Wolfgang Heni Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Claudia Hoessbacher Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Jens Niegemann Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Yuriy Fedoryshyn Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Alexandros Emboras Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Christian Haffner Institute of Electromagnetic Fields (IEF), ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland Argishti Meliykan IMT, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany Manfred Kohl IMT, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany Delwin L. Elder Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, USA Larry R. Dalton Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, USA

Modulators and switches are key elements in the physical layer of data- and telecommunications gear. While both modulators and switches perform similar operations they are carrying out different operations in a network and need to meet different requirements. Modulators, for instance are needed to encode data from the electrical domain to the optical domain. Modulators thus should offer ultra-fast operation (>100 GHz bandwidth), across a large optical spectrum at the lowest possible footprint with the least energy per bit. Requirements on switches depends on the application. Switches in routers e.g. require fast operation (>10 GHz bandwidth) in order to route traffic frame by frame. In contrast, circuit switches reassign traffic channels based on the actual demand. Bandwidth reassignments may e.g. performed based on the daily demand such that circuit switches require operation bandwidths in the order of kHz. Yet, since circuit switches hold a certain state for seconds or days they ideally should offer latching operation. A latching switch is a switch that maintains its state even when disconnected from the power. Despite the differences of modulators and switches they all have one thing in common. They should be cheap and small.
In this context plasmonics can offer a lot [1] and already showed performance beyond of what photonics can offer. E.g. recently, an all-plasmonic Mach-Zehnder modulator operating at 72 Gbit/s with a length as short as 10 μm was demonstrated [2]. The plasmonic MZM was integrated into a standard silicon waveguide and featured a small power consumption of ~20 fJ/bit. Similarly, plasmonic latching switches have recently been demonstrated [3]. These switches exploited the formation/annihilation of nanofilament in an insulator, where plasmonic modes were highly confined [4]. Operation at 1550 nm showed extinction ratios of 12 dB for devices of 10 μm length. After switching, the state were maintained without any external voltage.
In this talk we will review recent progress on plasmonic modulators and switches with an emphasis on work published in References [2-3].

1. N. Kinsey, et. al. " J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 32, 121-142 (2015).
2. C. Haffner, et. al., in Proc. ECOC, Cannes, France, 2014, p. PD.2.6.
3. C. Hoessbacher, et. al., Optica 1, 198-202 (2014).
4. A. Emboras, et. al.," Nano Letters 13, 6151–6155 (2013).

JuergLeuthold@ethz.ch









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