Alternative materials lead to practical nanophotonic components (Presentation Recording)

Nathaniel Kinsey; Marcello Ferrera; Clayton DeVault; Jongbum Kim; Alexander V. Kildishev; Vladimir M. Shalaev; Alexandra Boltasseva

doi:10.1117/12.2189811

5 October 2015 Alternative materials lead to practical nanophotonic components (Presentation Recording)

Nathaniel Kinsey, Marcello Ferrera, Clayton DeVault, Jongbum Kim, Alexander V. Kildishev, Vladimir M. Shalaev, Alexandra Boltasseva

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 9546, Active Photonic Materials VII; 95460L (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2189811
Event: SPIE Nanoscience + Engineering, 2015, San Diego, California, United States

Abstract

Recently, there has been a flurry of research in the field of alternative plasmonic materials, but for telecommunication applications, CMOS compatible materials titanium nitride and doped zinc oxides are among the most promising materials currently available. TiN is a gold-like ceramic with a permittivity cross-over near 500nm. In addition, TiN can attain ultra-thin, ultra-smooth epitaxial films on substrates such as c-sapphire, MgO, and silicon. Partnering TiN with CMOS compatible silicon nitride enables a fully solid state waveguide which is able to achieve a propagation length greater than 1cm for a ~8μm mode size at 1.55μm. Utilizing doped zinc oxide films as a dynamic material, high performance modulators can also be realized due to the low-loss achieved by the TiN/Si3N4 waveguide. Simply by placing a thin layer of aluminum doped zinc oxide (AZO) on top of the waveguide structure, a modulator with very low insertion loss is achieved. Our recent work has investigated optical tuning of AZO films by the pump-probe method, demonstrating a change in the refractive index of -0.17+0.25i at 1.3μm with an ultrafast response of 1ps. Assuming this change in the refractive index for the AZO film, a modulation of ~0.7dB/μm is possible in the structure with ~0.5dB insertion loss and an operational speed of 1THz. Further optimization of the design is expected to lead to an increased modulation depth without sacrificing insertion loss or speed. Consequently, nanophotonic technologies are reaching a critical point where many applications including telecom, medicine, and quantum science can see practical systems which provide new functionalities.

Conference Presentation

Citation Download Citation

Nathaniel Kinsey, Marcello Ferrera, Clayton DeVault, Jongbum Kim, Alexander V. Kildishev, Vladimir M. Shalaev, and Alexandra Boltasseva "Alternative materials lead to practical nanophotonic components (Presentation Recording)", Proc. SPIE 9546, Active Photonic Materials VII, 95460L (5 October 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2189811

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available

Members: $17.00

Non-members: $21.00 ADD TO CART

PROCEEDINGS
PRESENTATION

WATCH
PRESENTATION SAVE TO MY LIBRARY

GET CITATION

KEYWORDS

Nanophotonics

Tin

Waveguides

Zinc oxide

Modulation

Modulators

Refractive index

Show All Keywords

Keywords/Phrases

Search In:

Publication Years