Silicon–organic hybrid thermo-optic switch based on a slot waveguide directional coupler

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate a passively biased 2 × 2 thermo-optic switch with high power efficiency and fast response time. The device benefits from the highly concentrated optical field of a slot waveguide mode and the strong thermo-optic effect of a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) cladding. The NLC fills the nano-slot region and is aligned by the subwavelength grating inside. The measured power consumption and thermal time constant are 0.58 mW and 11.8 µs, respectively, corresponding to a figure-of-merit of 6.8 mW µs. The proposed silicon-organic hybrid device provides a new solution to design thermo-optic actuators having low power consumption and fast operation speed.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jul 28, 2022
Source ID
10.1364/ol.467858

Entities

People

  • Chun-Ta Wang
  • Li-Yuan Chiang
  • Paul K. L. Yu
  • Steve Pappert

Organizations

  • National Sun Yat-sen University
  • Office of Naval Research
  • University of California, San Diego

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Materials Science and Engineering.
  • Microwave Engineering.
  • Optical Physics and Photonics.