Polarization-Insensitive Electro-Optic Modulator for the Terahertz Regime Enabled by a Graphene-Hybrid Plasmonic Waveguide
A polarization-insensitive compact optical modulator based on a graphene-hybrid surface plasmon polariton waveguide is proposed. The inverted U-shaped structure enables the synchronous control of TE/TM modes via Fermi level tuning, achieving a maximum attenuation of 0.247 dB/μm (E<sub>f</sub> = 0.3 eV) and a minimum attenuation of 0.026-0.028 dB/μm (E<sub>f</sub> = 1.0 eV) at 3 THz, with a polarization-dependent modulation error of only 0.002 dB/μm. The 100 μm × 30 μm device operates effectively at 2.5 THz (120 μm), demonstrating its potential for integrated photonic circuits. Additionally, the proposed modulator is compatible with Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The excellent ultra-broadband modulation performance of the graphene-hybrid plasmonic waveguide (GHPW) thereby paves the way for high-speed communication, non-destructive testing, biomedical sensing and optical computing.
Authors
- Jianyu Pan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8777-0002)
- Caijing Liu
- Yong Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4038-0493)
- Xia Zhou (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1702-0035)
- Qilong Tan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0027-9078)
- Tingting Weng
- Xuguang Huang
Institutions
- South China Normal University (CN)
- Institute of Semiconductors (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nanomaterials
- Published
- 2026-02-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3390/nano16050288
- Primary Topic
- Plasmonic and Surface Plasmon Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00