Abstract

Electro-optical modulation of visible and near-infrared light is important for a wide variety of applications, ranging from communications to sensing and smart windows. However, currently available approaches result in rather bulky devices, suffer from low integrability [1], and can hardly operate at the low power consumption and fast switching rates of microelectronic drivers. Here we show that planar nanostructures patterned in ultrathin metal-graphene hybrid films sustain highly tunable plasmons in the visible and near-infrared spectral regions. Strong variations in the reflection and absorption of incident light take place when the plasmons are tuned on- and off-resonance with respect to externally incident light. As a result, a remarkable modulation depth exceeding 90% in transmission and even more dramatic in reflection (>600%) is predicted for graphene-loaded silver film of 1-5 nm thickness and currently attainable lateral dimensions [2]. These new structures hold great potential for fast low-power electro-optical modulation.

© 2017 IEEE