E-mail Alert
RSS
| Citation: |
Wen L, Nan XH, Li JX, David RSC, Hu X et al. Broad-band spatial light modulation with dual epsilon-near-zero modes. Opto-Electron Adv 5, 200093 (2022). doi: 10.29026/oea.2022.200093
|
Broad-band spatial light modulation with dual epsilon-near-zero modes
-
Abstract
Epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) modes have attracted extensive interests due to its ultrasmall mode volume resulting in extremely strong light-matter interaction (LMI) for active optoelectronic devices. The ENZ modes can be electrically toggled between on and off states with a classic metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) configuration and therefore allow access to electro-absorption (E-A) modulation. Relying on the quantum confinement of charge-carriers in the doped semiconductor, the fundamental limitation of achieving high modulation efficiency with MIS junction is that only a nanometer-thin ENZ confinement layer can contribute to the strength of E-A. Further, for the ENZ based spatial light modulation, the requirement of resonant coupling inevitably leads to small absolute modulation depth and limited spectral bandwidth as restricted by the properties of the plasmonic or high-Q resonance systems. In this paper, we proposed and demonstrated a dual-ENZ mode scheme for spatial light modulation with a TCOs/dielectric/silicon nanotrench configuration for the first time. Such a SIS junction can build up two distinct ENZ layers arising from the induced charge-carriers of opposite polarities adjacent to both faces of the dielectric layer. The non-resonant and low-loss deep nanotrench framework allows the free space light to be modulated efficiently via interaction of dual ENZ modes in an elongated manner. Our theoretical and experimental studies reveal that the dual ENZ mode scheme in the SIS configuration leverages the large modulation depth, extended spectral bandwidth together with high speed switching, thus holding great promise for achieving electrically addressed spatial light modulation in near- to mid-infrared regions.-
Keywords:
- epsilon-near-zero /
- modulation /
- TCOs /
- electro-optic /
- light harvesting
-
-
References
[1] Efron U, Liverscu G. Multiple quantum well spatial light modulators. Spatial Light Modulator Technology: Materials, Devices and Applications, Efron U, Eds. ; Dekker: New York (1995). [2] Savage N. Digital spatial light modulators. Nat Photonics 3, 170–172 (2009). doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.18 [3] Maurer C, Jesacher A, Bernet S, Ritsch‐Marte M. What spatial light modulators can do for optical microscopy. Laser Photonics Rev 5, 81–101 (2011). doi: 10.1002/lpor.200900047 [4] Zhang YB, Liu H, Cheng H, Tian JG, Chen SQ. Multidimensional manipulation of wave fields based on artificial microstructures. Opto-Electron Adv 3, 200002 (2020). doi: 10.29026/oea.2020.200002 [5] Chen Q, Nan XH, Chen MJ, Pan DH, Yang XG et al. Nanophotonic color routing. Adv Mater 33, 2103815 (2021). doi: 10.1002/adma.202103815 [6] Wen L, Liang L, Yang XG, Liu Z, Li BJ et al. Multiband and ultrahigh figure-of-merit nanoplasmonic sensing with direct electrical readout in Au-Si nanojunctions. ACS Nano 13, 6963–6972 (2019). doi: 10.1021/acsnano.9b01914 [7] Chen Q, Liang L, Zheng QL, Zhang YX, Wen L. On-chip readout plasmonic mid-IR gas sensor. Opto-Electron Adv 3, 190040 (2020). doi: 10.29026/oea.2020.190040 [8] Soref R, Bennett B. Electrooptical effects in silicon. IEEE J Quant Electron 23, 123–129 (1987). doi: 10.1109/JQE.1987.1073206 [9] Alexander K, George JP, Verbist J, Neyts K, Kuyken B et al. Nanophotonic Pockels modulators on a silicon nitride platform. Nat Commun 9, 3444 (2018). doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05846-6 [10] Kuo YH, Lee YK, Ge YS, Ren S, Roth JE et al. Strong quantum-confined Stark effect in germanium quantum-well structures on silicon. Nature 437, 1334–1336 (2005). doi: 10.1038/nature04204 [11] Asakawa K, Sugimoto Y, Nakamura S. Silicon photonics for telecom and data-com applications. Opto-Electron Adv 3, 200011 (2020). [12] Reed GT, Mashanovich G, Gardes FY, Thomson DJ. Silicon optical modulators. Nat Photonics 4, 518–526 (2010). doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2010.179 [13] Reed GT, Mashanovich GZ, Gardes FY, Nedeljkovic M, Hu YF et al. Recent breakthroughs in carrier depletion based silicon optical modulators. Nanophotonics 3, 229–245 (2014). doi: 10.1515/nanoph-2013-0016 [14] Wood MG, Burr JR, Reano RM. 7 nm/V DC tunability and millivolt scale switching in silicon carrier injection degenerate band edge resonators. Opt Express 24, 23481–23493 (2016). doi: 10.1364/OE.24.023481 [15] Terada Y, Tatebe T, Hinakura Y, Baba T. Si photonic crystal slow-light modulators with periodic p–n junctions. J Lightw Technol 35, 1684–1692 (2017). doi: 10.1109/JLT.2017.2658668 [16] Timurdogan E, Sorace-Agaskar CM, Sun J, Hosseini ES, Biberman A et al. An ultralow power athermal silicon modulator. Nat Commun 5, 4008 (2014). doi: 10.1038/ncomms5008 [17] Haffner C, Heni W, Fedoryshyn Y, Niegemann J, Melikyan A et al. All-plasmonic Mach–Zehnder modulator enabling optical high-speed communication at the microscale. Nat Photonics 9, 525–528 (2015). doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2015.127 [18] Dionne JA, Diest K, Sweatlock KA, Atwater HA. PlasMOStor: a metal−oxide−Si field effect plasmonic modulator. Nano Lett 9, 897–902 (2009). doi: 10.1021/nl803868k [19] Hassan SA, Lisicka-Skrzek E, Olivieri A, Tait RN, Berini P. Fabrication of a plasmonic modulator incorporating an overlaid grating coupler. Nanotechnology 25, 495202 (2014). doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/25/49/495202 [20] Olivieri A, Chen CK, Hassan S, Lisicka-Skrzek E, Tait RN et al. Plasmonic nanostructured metal–oxide–semiconductor reflection modulators. Nano Lett 15, 2304–2311 (2015). doi: 10.1021/nl504389f [21] Qiu CY, Chen CJ, Xia Y, Xu QF. Active dielectric antenna on chip for spatial light modulation. Sci Rep 2, 855 (2012). doi: 10.1038/srep00855 [22] Shuai YC, Zhao DY, Liu YH, Stambaugh C, Lawall J et al. Coupled bilayer photonic crystal slab electro-optic spatial light modulators. IEEE Photonics J 9, 7101411 (2017). [23] Zhou WD, Fan SH. Fano resonance photonic crystal filters and modulators. Semiconduct Semimet 100, 149–188 (2019). [24] O'brien BB, Burns BE, Hu KL, Ionescu AC. Silicon spatial light modulator. US Pat, 5170283, 1992. [25] Lazarev G, Hermerschmidt A, Krüger S, Osten S. LCOS spatial light modulators: trends and applications. Optical Imaging and Metrology (Eds Osten W, Reingand N), John Wiley & Sons (2012). [26] Worchesky TL, Ritter KJ, Martin R, Lane B. Large arrays of spatial light modulators hybridized to silicon integrated circuits. Appl Opt 35, 1180–1186 (1996). doi: 10.1364/AO.35.001180 [27] Kulkarni OP, Islam MN, Terry FL. GaAs-based surface-normal optical modulator compared to Si and its wavelength response characterization using a supercontinuum laser. Opt Express 19, 4076–4084 (2011). doi: 10.1364/OE.19.004076 [28] Kuo YH, Lee YK, Ge YS, Ren S, Roth JE et al. Quantum-confined stark effect in Ge/SiGe quantum wells on Si for optical modulators. IEEE J Sel Top Quant Electron 12, 1503–1513 (2006). doi: 10.1109/JSTQE.2006.883146 [29] Audet RM, Edwards EH, Balram KC, Claussen SA, Schaevitz RK et al. Surface-Normal Ge/SiGe asymmetric Fabry–Perot optical modulators fabricated on silicon substrates. J Lightw Technol 31, 3995–4003 (2013). doi: 10.1109/JLT.2013.2279174 [30] Yang YM, Lu J, Manjavacas A, Luk TS, Liu HZ et al. High-harmonic generation from an epsilon-near-zero material. Nat Phys 15, 1022–1026 (2019). doi: 10.1038/s41567-019-0584-7 [31] Babicheva VE, Boltasseva A, Lavrinenko AV. Transparent conducting oxides for electro-optical plasmonic modulators. Nanophotonics 4, 165–185 (2015). doi: 10.1515/nanoph-2015-0004 [32] Hendrickson JR, Vangala S, Dass C, Gibson R, Goldsmith J et al. Coupling of epsilon-near-zero mode to gap Plasmon Mode for flat-top wideband perfect light absorption. ACS Photonics 5, 776–781 (2018). doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01491 [33] Gao Q, Li EW, Wang AX. Comparative analysis of transparent conductive oxide electro-absorption modulators [Invited]. Opt Mater Express 8, 2850–2862 (2018). doi: 10.1364/OME.8.002850 [34] Chen Q, Song SC, Wang HC, Liang L, Dong YJ et al. Ultra-broadband spatial light modulation with dual-resonance coupled epsilon-near-zero materials. Nano Res 14, 2673–2680 (2021). doi: 10.1007/s12274-020-3271-1 [35] Nemati A, Wang Q, Ang NSS, Wang WD, Hong MH et al. Ultra-high extinction-ratio light modulation by electrically tunable metasurface using dual epsilon-near-zero resonances. Opto-Electron Adv 4, 200088 (2021). doi: 10.29026/oea.2021.200088 [36] Krasavin AV, Zayats AV. Photonic signal processing on electronic scales: electro-optical field-effect nanoplasmonic modulator. Phys Rev Lett 109, 053901 (2012). doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.053901 [37] Wood MG, Campione S, Parameswaran S, Luk TS, Wendt JR et al. Gigahertz speed operation of epsilon-near-zero silicon photonic modulators. Optica 5, 233–236 (2018). doi: 10.1364/OPTICA.5.000233 [38] Amin R, Maiti R, Carfano C, Ma ZZ, Tahersima MH et al. 0.52 V mm ITO-based Mach-Zehnder modulator in silicon photonics. APL Photonics 3, 126104 (2018). doi: 10.1063/1.5052635 [39] Li EW, Gao Q, Chen RT, Wang AX. Ultracompact silicon-conductive oxide nanocavity modulator with 0.02 Lambda-Cubic active volume. Nano Lett 18, 1075–1081 (2018). doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.7b04588 [40] Park J, Kang JH, Liu XG, Brongersma ML. Electrically tunable Epsilon-Near-Zero (ENZ) Metafilm absorbers. Sci Rep 5, 15754 (2015). doi: 10.1038/srep15754 [41] Shi KF, Haque RR, Zhao BY, Zhao RC, Lu ZL. Broadband electro-optical modulator based on transparent conducting oxide. Opt Lett 39, 4978–4981 (2014). doi: 10.1364/OL.39.004978 [42] Liu XG, Kang JH, Yuan HT, Park J, Kim SJ et al. Electrical tuning of a quantum plasmonic resonance. Nat Nanotechnol 12, 866–870 (2017). doi: 10.1038/nnano.2017.103 [43] Liu XG, Kang JH, Yuan HT, Park J, Cui Y et al. Tuning of Plasmons in transparent conductive oxides by carrier accumulation. ACS Photonics 5, 1493–1498 (2018). doi: 10.1021/acsphotonics.7b01517 [44] Hu X, Chen Q, Wen L, Jin L, Wang HC et al. Modulating spatial light by grating slot waveguides with transparent conducting oxides. IEEE Photonic Technol Lett 28, 1665–1668 (2016). doi: 10.1109/LPT.2016.2565507 [45] Howes A, Wang WY, Kravchenko I, Valentine J. Dynamic transmission control based on all-dielectric Huygens metasurfaces. Optica 5, 787–792 (2018). doi: 10.1364/OPTICA.5.000787 [46] Lalanne P, Lemercier-Lalanne D. Depth dependence of the effective properties of subwavelength gratings. J Opt Soc Am A 14, 450–459 (1997). doi: 10.1364/JOSAA.14.000450 -
Supplementary Information
Supplementary information for Broad-band spatial light modulation with dual epsilon-near-zero modes 
-
Access History
Figures(5)
Article Metrics
Export File
Citation
Wen L, Nan XH, Li JX, David RSC, Hu X et al. Broad-band spatial light modulation with dual epsilon-near-zero modes. Opto-Electron Adv 5, 200093 (2022). doi: 10.29026/oea.2022.200093
Format
Content
DownLoad:
-
Figure 1.
(a–b) The schematic drawing of the deep nanotech-based SIS capacitor for broad-band spectral E-O modulation. Under external voltage biasing, the capacitor encounters charge accumulation at both sides of the SIS junction. With a sufficiently high carrier density, dual ENZ confinements can be anticipatedin the nanometer thin layers which results insubstantial E-O absorption along the sidewall of the nanotrench. Herein, the period of the nanotrench (P) is 300 nm, the width of the silicon wall is a half of the period (W=P/2), and the thickness of HfO2 (td) is assumed to be 8 nm. The background doping level of AZO and silicon is 2×1018 and 2×1017 cm−3, respectively. (c) The evolution of the mode loss characteristics in the SIS nanotrenchas a function of wavelength and voltage bias. The upper plot shows two typical mode field profiles associated to with and without a voltage bias. (d) The imaginary part of the effective mode index (neff) plotted at three selected voltages (i.e., Vb=−4, 0 and 4 V). The inset is Pabs of the eigenmodes plotted in the spatial and spectral domains, which illustrates the localized energy absorption properties of the two distinct ENZ modes (Vb= 4 V).
-
Figure 2.
(a) Top view SEM images of the deepnanotrenchSIS capacitor. (b) Side view SEM image of the inner structure of the SIS nanotrenchesafter a section in the central region was milled by FIB.The etched nanowalls were slightly tapered, with the top and bottom widths ranging from 110 to 185 nm and the depthestimated to be 1.3 μm. (c) The photograph of fabricated device mounted on PCB (left) and the enlarged optical microscopy image of the device area. (d) The FTIR measured reflection spectra at various voltages.
-
Figure 3.
(a) The measured and fitted SE data of the planar reference structure with different incidence angles. The complete structure represented in SE model as a multilayered system (Inset of the top plot). (b) Optical constants of the PLD deposited AZO film based on the SE fitting. The derived values for the Drude model parameters are: high frequency permittivity ε∞=3.806, carrier density N0=3.3×1020 cm−3 and damping rate γ=1.39 ×1014 s−1. Based on the SE model, the thickness of the AZO film and HfO2 is found to be 343 and 10 nm, respectively. (c) Spectral fitting results of the nanostrench and the planar reference devices. The thick and thin curves represent the experimental and fitted results, respectively. Note that, the non-polarization response of nanotrench device is averaged by two orthogonal linear polarizations.
-
Figure 4.
(a) The experimental measured high frequency C-V curves of the nanotrench and planar SIS capacitor (open symbols). The result of the planar reference was fitted very well with our electrical model (red line). (b) Voltage bias-dependent carrier profiles near the SIS junction area obtained from the TCAD modeling using the derived electrical parameters. (c) The imaginary part of the effective index of the fundamental mode supported by the SIS nanotrench. In the PDE calculations, the spatially varied optical constants of the SIS junction were extrapolated by the Drude model using the carrier profiles shown in (b). (d) The Pabs distribution across the SIS junction at a wavelength of 3800 nm representing the ENZ modes modulated by voltage biasing.
-
Figure 5.
Transient E-O response of the AZO/HfO2/p-Si capacitor to applied switching voltage. (a) Quasistatic-state band diagram of the SIS junction with and without an external voltage bias (left and middle plots). The evolution of carrier distribution near the SIS junction for the capacitor applied with gradually decreased voltages (right plot). (b–c) Transient carrier and E-O modulation of the proposed SIS capacitor. The E-O modulation property is calculated based on an optical model using the same geometry as that of Fig. 2 (i.e., AZO fully wrapped the nanotrench structure where the depth of the nanotrench is 1.5 μm. For the sake of reducing series resistance, the thickness of substrate is assumed to be 100 μm).
