Experimental demonstration of a tunable transverse electric pass polarizer based on hybrid VO2/silicon technology.

A tunable transverse electric (TE) pass polarizer is demonstrated based on hybrid vanadium dioxide/silicon (VO2/Si) technology. The 20-μm-long TE pass polarizer exploits the phase transition of the active VO2 material to control the rejection of the unwanted transverse magnetic (TM) polarization. The device features insertion losses below 1 dB at static conditions and insertion losses of 5.5 dB and an attenuation of TM polarization of 19 dB in the active state for a wavelength range between 1540 nm and 1570 nm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that tunable polarizers compatible with Si photonics are demonstrated.