Power consumption analysis of an optical modulator based on different amounts of graphene

Daniel Neves, Rafael Nobrega, Anderson Sanches, Antonio Jurando-Navas, Ivan Glesk, Shyqyri Haxha, Thiago Raddo

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Energy-efficient devices will play a key role in the continued performance scaling of next-generation information and communication technology systems. Graphene has emerged as a key optoelectronic material with unique energy-like
properties. But to the best of our knowledge, these advantages have not yet been fully exploited in optical modulators design. In this work, we design and analyze a novel optical modulator which is composed of two graphene layers and a
ring resonator made with different amount of graphene. For performance analysis, the ring resonator’s amount of graphene is varied from 25 to 100% with four discrete steps. The critical coupling condition representing the OFFstate,
and the 3-dB transmission level representing the ON-state of the device are obtained. Numerical results show this new optical modulator consumes as little energy as 4.6 fJ/bit whilst achieving high-speed operation with bandwidth up to 42.6 GHz when employing surprisingly only 25% of graphene. The 42.6 GHz modulator has a footprint as small as 22.𝟏 μ𝒎𝟐 with an active area of 1.68 μ𝒎𝟐 only, the smallest active area to date. Alternatively, the optical modulator achieves up to ~88.5 GHz at the expense of consuming 17.5 fJ/bit when using 100% of graphene. The proposed graphene-based modulator proved to be a compact, energy-efficient, high-speed device, useful for a myriad of applications including mobile fronthaul, telecom, and datacom.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2077-2090
Number of pages14
JournalOSA Continuum
Volume1
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Sept 2022

Keywords

  • Electrooptic Modulator
  • Graphene based Modulator
  • Optical Modulator
  • High-speed fibre optics

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