Electro-Optical Modulator Based on Lithium Niobate Notched-Ring Plasmonic Metasurface Coated with Electro-Optical Polymer

Abstract

High speed and large capacity optical communication technology requires various optical devices, including optical modulators. Herein, an electro-optical (EO) modulator based on lithium niobate notched-ring plasmonic metasurface (LNPM) coated with EO polymer is demonstrated. The transmission and reflectance characteristics of the LNPM are simulated by finite element method (FEM), and the results show that the LNPM coated with EO polymer has resonant peaks at the operating wavelengths of 1.59 and 1.62 μm for the TM and TE polarized lights, respectively. The parameter optimizations indicate that the resonant peaks of the LNPM move towards higher frequency when the period (P) decreases or the notched-ring diameter (D) increases. The electro-optic (EO) modulation performances show that the EO wavelength tuning (EOWT) of the HEOT-LNPM is 90 pm/V, and the maximum modulation depth (MD) is 17.5 dB with an extinction ratio (ER) of 20.2 dB. The LNPM coated with EO polymer provides a feasible EO modulation scheme for the optical communication, optical signal processing, and optical network links. Furthermore, it has promising applications in the fields of 5G communication, cloud computing, internet-of-ting, and artificial intelligence.

Keywords: Matematerial, EO modulation, finite element method, lithium niobate