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Modulation

Plasmons lend a helping hand

Nature Photonics volume 1, pages 368–369 (2007)Cite this article

Optical modulators typically rely on weak nonlinear light–matter interactions to modulate light with light. But using surface plasmons to excite quantum dots, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have now demonstrated an efficient approach to chip-based all-optical modulation.

Modulation conveys information by adding a data signal to a signal carrier. Native Americans modulated the flow of smoke to communicate with one another, and telegraphy was made possible by virtue of a modulated voltage, for example in the form of Morse codes. Modulating one light signal with another could be useful for data storage, information processing and communication, but the key to integrated optical modulation is to build a compact, fast device that consumes little power. All-optical modulation has been achieved in the past using nonlinear materials, which require large interaction lengths (centimetres) and high power levels to achieve fast modulation. On page 402 of this issue1, Dominico Pacifici and co-workers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) present a different approach. They exploit the properties of a structured metal surface to demonstrate, for the first time, a compact, low-power and fast (less than 40-ns modulation time) all-optical modulator.

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Figure 1: A schematic of the all-optical modulation approach adopted by Pacifici and colleagues1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Aude L. Lereu is at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO), Mediterranean Technology Park, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain. aude.lereu@icfo.es,

    Aude L. Lereu

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  1. Aude L. Lereu
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Lereu, A. Plasmons lend a helping hand. Nature Photon 1, 368–369 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.105

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2007.105

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