Design optimizations for a high-speed two-layer graphene optical modulator on silicon

Abstract

Graphene has emerged as one of the best novel materials for enhancement of various optical devices due to its exceptional light-matter interaction and optical properties. In this paper we focus on the integrated graphene optical modulator on a silicon waveguide, and show that by choosing specific design parameters of the device, we can achieve performances which surpass the previously reported graphene, and even all silicon modulators in speed, energy consumption and footprint. We substantiate our findings through numerical simulations and provide a deeper qualitative insight into the light matter interaction in graphene coated silicon waveguides.