CMOS-compatible hybrid plasmonic modulator based on vanadium dioxide insulator-metal phase transition.

To extend the application of an emerging plasmonic material, vanadium dioxide (VO₂), in silicon photonics technology, we propose a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible hybrid plasmonic modulator using an VO₂ insulator-metal phase transition. The optical device is based on a directional coupler that consists of a Si waveguide and a Si-SiO₂-VO₂-SiO₂-Si hybrid plasmonic waveguide. By electrically triggering the phase of VO₂ with a driving voltage of 2 V, the propagation loss of the hybrid plasmonic waveguide is switched, and hence the output optical power is modulated. The on/off extinction ratio is larger than 3.0 dB on the entire C-band.