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Subvolt high-speed free-space modulator with electro-optic metasurface.pdf
The article presents a subvolt high-speed free-space optical modulator using a silicon-organic-hybrid (SOH) metasurface that operates efficiently at low voltages, enabling fast data transmission at minimal power consumption. The device uses a dimerized-grating nanostructure, which effectively couples light to a high-Q resonant mode within a narrow silicon slot region. By embedding an organic electro-optic (OEO) material, the modulator achieves significant modulation efficiency with a driving voltage as low as 0.2 V, demonstrating data transmission speeds up to 1.6 Gbps.
The device’s performance is enhanced by distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) sections, which minimize leakage and enable a high-speed response. The results show that the modulator performs efficiently at complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible voltages, making it suitable for energy-efficient high-speed applications in optical communication, sensing, and computing.
The article also compares this work to previous metasurface modulators, highlighting the improvement in modulation efficiency, insertion loss, and electro-optic bandwidth. The experimental setup validates the performance by testing different signal formats, achieving bit error rates (BERs) below 7% HD-FEC for 50 Mbps NRZ and 100 Mbps PAM4 signals.
In conclusion, the SOH metasurface modulator offers a promising solution for low-voltage, high-speed optical modulation, paving the way for energy-efficient integration in practical applications.
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