Design of Artificial Nonlinear Materials for Plasmonic Electro-Optic Modulators
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: We introduce artificial electro-optic materials with giant Pockels coefficients. Introducing them into plasmonic modulators addresses the long-standing issue of inherent losses. State-of-the-art plasmonic modulators offer small sizes, record-breaking bandwidths [1], and low electrical power consumption [2]. In order to combat losses, materials with high electro-optic (EO) activity can be employed to reduce the overall length of the plasmonic section. A currently unexplored option could be asymmetric quantum wells (QW), for which early demonstrations showed the possibility of reaching up to 1.6$\cdot 10^{9}$pm V-1EO coefficients in the MIR [3], exploiting the significant dipole moments of intersubband (ISB) transitions. However, adaptation into NIR wavelengths is challenging, as the band offset necessary for the NIR proves difficult to reach with common III - V materials while staying in the ISB regime. Recently, it has been shown that ISB transitions are possible in TiN / Al2O3QWs with nonlinearities reaching up to 1.5 nm V-1at resonance [4]. This abstract highlights the potential ofnon-III-V artificial materials exploiting ISB transitions for Plasmonic EO applications in the NIR region.
Authors: Killian Keller, Marco Dober, Joel Winiger, Arnaud Schneuwly, Michael Doderer, Michael Baumann, Juerg Leuthold
Institutions: ETH Zurich, Electromagnetic Fields Laboratory
Language: English
Subfield: Biomedical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4413462163