Abstract
Highly confined optical energy in plasmonic devices is advancing miniaturization in photonics. However, for mode sizes approaching ≈10 nm, the energy increasingly shifts into the metal, raising losses and hindering active phase modulation. Here, we propose a nanoelectromechanical phase-modulation principle exploiting the extraordinarily strong dependence of the phase velocity of metal–insulator–metal gap plasmons on dynamically variable gap size. We experimentally demonstrate a 23-μm-long non-resonant modulator having a 1.5π rad range, with 1.7 dB excess loss at 780 nm. Analysis shows that by simultaneously decreasing the gap, length and width, an ultracompact-footprint π rad phase modulator can be realized. This is achieved without incurring the extra loss expected for plasmons confined in a decreasing gap, because the increasing phase-modulation strength from a narrowing gap offsets rising propagation losses. Such small, high-density electrically controllable components may find applications in optical switch fabrics and reconfigurable plasmonic optics.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Raether, H. Surface Plasmons on Smooth and Rough Surfaces and on Gratings (Springer, 1988).
Ozbay, E. Plasmonics: merging photonics and electronics at nanoscale dimensions. Science 311, 189–193 (2006).
Gramotnev, D. K. & Bozhevolnyi, S. I. Plasmonics beyond the diffraction limit. Nature Photon. 4, 83–91 (2010).
Dionne, J. A., Sweatlock, L. A., Atwater, H. A. & Polman, A. Plasmon slot waveguides: towards chip-scale propagation with subwavelength-scale localization. Phys. Rev. B 73, 035407 (2006).
Pile, D. F. P. et al. Two-dimensionally localized modes of a nanoscale gap plasmon waveguide. Appl. Phys. Lett. 87, 261114 (2005).
Thijssen, R., Verhagen, E., Kippenberg, T. J. & Polman, A. Plasmon nanomechanical coupling for nanoscale transduction. Nano Lett. 13, 3293–3297 (2013).
Kuttge, M., Cai, W., García de Abajo, F. J. & Polman, A. Dispersion of metal–insulator–metal plasmon polaritons probed by cathodoluminescence imaging spectroscopy. Phys. Rev. B 80, 033409 (2009).
Woolf, D., Loncar, M. & Capasso, F. The forces from coupled surface plasmon polaritons in planar waveguides. Opt. Express 17, 19996–20011 (2009).
Bozhevolnyi, S. I. & Jung, J. Scaling for gap plasmon based waveguides. Opt. Express 16, 2676–2684 (2008).
Chen, J., Smolyakov, G. A., Brueck, S. R. J. & Malloy, K. J. Surface plasmon modes of finite, planar, metal–insulator–metal plasmonic waveguides. Opt. Express 16, 14902–14909 (2008).
Pile, D. F. P., Gramotnev, D. K., Oulton, R. F. & Zhang, X. On long-range plasmonic modes in metallic gaps. Opt. Express 15, 13669–13674 (2007).
Liu, L., Han, Z. & He, S. Novel surface plasmon waveguide for high integration. Opt. Express 13, 6645–6650 (2005).
Veronis, G. & Fan, S. Guided subwavelength plasmonic mode support by a slot in a thin metal film. Opt. Lett. 30, 3359–3361 (2005).
Pile, D. F. P. & Gramotnev, D. K. Adiabatic and nonadiabatic nanofocusing of plasmons by tapered gap plasmon waveguides. Appl. Phys. Lett. 89, 041111 (2006).
Choo, H. et al. Nanofocusing in a metal–insulator–metal gap plasmon waveguide with a three-dimensional linear taper. Nature Photon. 277, 838–834 (2012).
Schuller, J. A. et al. Plasmonics for extreme light concentration and manipulation. Nature Mater. 9, 193–204 (2010).
Sorger, V. J. et al. Experimental demonstration of low-loss optical waveguiding at deep sub-wavelength scales. Nature Commun. 2, 331 (2011).
Miyazaki, H. T. & Kurokawa, Y. Squeezing visible light waves into a 3-nm thick and 55 nm long plasmon cavity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 097401 (2006).
Maier, S. A. Plasmonics: Fundamentals and Applications (Springer, 2007).
Lee, B. G. et al. Monolithic silicon integration of scaled photonic switch fabrics, MOS logic, and device driver circuits. J. Lightw. Technol. 32, 743–751 (2014).
Yu, N. & Capasso, F. Flat optics with designer metasurfaces. Nature Mater. 13, 139–150 (2014).
Haffner, C. et al. High-speed plasmonic Mach–Zehnder modulator in a waveguide. Eur. Conf. Opt. Com. (ECOC) PD.2.6 (2014).
Beggs, D. M., White, T. P., Kampfrath, T., Kuipers, K. & Krauss, T. F. Slow-light photonic crystal switches and modulators. Proc. SPIE 7606, 76060N (2010).
Melikyan, A. et al. High-speed plasmonic phase modulators. Nature Photon. 8, 229–233 (2014).
Poot, M. & Tang, H. X. Broadband nanoelectromechanical phase shifting of light on a chip. Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 061101 (2014).
Xu, Q., Schmidt, B., Pradhan, S. & Lipson, M. Micrometre-scale silicon electro-optic modulator. Nature 435, 325–327 (2005).
Sun, X., Zhang, X., Poot, M., Xiong, C. & Tang, H. X. A superhigh-frequency optoelectromechanical system based on a slotted photonic crystal cavity. Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 221116 (2012).
Miao, H., Srinivasan, K. & Aksyuk, V. A microelectromechanically controlled cavity optomechanical sensing system. New J. Phys. 14, 075015 (2012).
Sorger, V. J., Lanzillotti-Kimura, N. D., Ma, R. M. & Zhang, X. Ultra-compact silicon nanophotonic modulator with broadband response. Nanophotonics 1, 17–22 (2012).
Dionne, J. A., Diest, K., Sweatlock, L. A. & Atwater, H. A. PlasMOStor: a metal–oxide–Si field effect plasmonic modulator. Nano Lett. 9, 897–902 (2009).
Dionne, J. A., Lezec, H. J. & Atwater, H. A. Highly confined photon transport in subwavelength metallic slot waveguides. Nano Lett. 6, 1928–1932 (2006).
Lezec, H. J., Dionne, J. A. & Atwater, H. A. Negative refraction at visible frequencies. Science 316, 430–432 (2007).
Yang, R. & Lu, Z. Silicon-on-insulator platform for integration of 3-D nanoplasmonic devices. ECOC IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett. 23, 22 (2011).
Skorobogatiy, M. Nanostructured and Subwavelength Waveguides: Fundamentals and Applications (Wiley, 2012).
Kocabas, S. E., Veronis, G., Miller, D. A. B. & Fan, S. Modal analysis and coupling in metal–insulator–metal waveguides. Phys. Rev. B 79, 035120 (2009).
Anglin, K., Adams, D. C., Ribaudo, T. & Wasserman, D. Toothed mid-infrared metal–insulator–metal waveguides. Proc. OSA/CLEO 1–2 (2011); http://doi.org/2sm
Soref, R. Peale, R. E. Buchwald, I . & Cleary, J. Silicon plasmonic waveguides for the infrared and terahertz regions. Proc. OSA FiO/LS/META/OF&T 1–3 (2008); http://doi.org/2sn
Stockman, M. I. Nanoplasmonics: past, present, and glimpse into future. Opt. Express 19, 22029–22106 (2011).
Nathanson, H. C., Newell, W. E., Wickstrom, R. A. & Davis, J. R. Jr. The resonant gate transistor. IEEE Trans. Electron. Dev. ED-14(3), 117–133 (1967).
Born, M. & Wolf, E. Principles of Optics 7th edn (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999).
Haus, J. W., de Ceglia, D., Vincenti, M. A. & Scalora, M. Quantum conductivity for metal–insulator–metal nanostructures. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 31, 259–269 (2014).
Chen, J., He, L., Farson, D. F. & Rokhlin, S. I. Review: experiments and simulations for small-scale electrical discharges. Welding J. 90, 161S–170S (2011).
Stroscio, J. A., Feenstra, R. M. & Fein, A. P. Electronic structure of the Si(111)2 × 1 surface by scanning-tunneling microscopy. Phys. Rev. Lett. 57, 2579–2582 (1986).
Czaplewski, D. A., Nordquist, C. D., Patrizi, G. A., Kraus, G. M. & Cowan, W. D. RF MEMS switches with RuO2–Au contacts cycled to 10B cycles. J. Microelectromech. Syst. 22, 655–661 (2013).
De Pasquale, G. & Somà, A. MEMS mechanical fatigue: effect of mean stress on gold microbeams. J. Microelectromech. Syst. 20, 1054, 1063 (2011).
Gaidarzhy, A., Imboden, M., Mohanty, P., Rankin, J. & Sheldon, B. W. High quality factor gigahertz frequencies in nanomechanical diamond resonators. Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 203503 (2007).
Yi, Z. & Liao, X. A capacitive power sensor based on the MEMS cantilever beam fabricated by GaAs MMIC technology. J. Micromech. Microeng. 23, 035001 (2013).
Copel, M. et al. Giant piezoresistive on/off ratios in rare-earth chalcogenide thin films enabling nanomechanical switching. Nano Lett. 13, 4650–4653 (2013).
Newns, D., Elmegreen, B., Liu, X. H. & Martyna, G. A low-voltage high-speed electronic switch based on piezoelectric transduction. J. Appl. Phys. 111, 084509 (2012).
Baek, S. H. et al. Giant piezoelectricity on Si for hyper-active MEMS. Science 334, 958–961 (2011).
Aksyuk, V. A. Design and modeling of an ultracompact 2x2 nanomechanical plasmonic switch. Preprint at http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.5876 (2014).
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge support from the Measurement Science and Engineering Research Grant Program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (award nos. 70NANB14H259 and 70NANB14H030) and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant no. FA9550-09-1-0698). The authors thank A. Agrawal and H. Lezec for their technical suggestions and insightful comments on the manuscript, G. Holland and A. Band for their technical help with the experimental set-up and P. Lubik for his programming assistance. Computational support from the Department of Defense High Performance Computation Modernization project is acknowledged. This work was performed, in part, at the Center for Nanoscale Materials, a US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences User Facility (contract no. DE-AC02-06CH11357).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
B.S.D. developed the fabrication process, designed and fabricated the modulators, performed the experiments, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. M.I.H. developed an analytical model and wrote the manuscript. G.B. developed the concept, designed the experiment and wrote the manuscript. D.A.C and D.L. developed the fabrication process. V.A.A. developed the concept, designed the experiment, performed simulations, developed the fabrication process, analysed the data and wrote the manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary information
Supplementary information (PDF 827 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dennis, B., Haftel, M., Czaplewski, D. et al. Compact nanomechanical plasmonic phase modulators. Nature Photon 9, 267–273 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.40
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2015.40
This article is cited by
-
Ultra-compact exciton polariton modulator based on van der Waals semiconductors
Nature Communications (2024)
-
A High-Performance Refractive Index Sensor Based on Hybrid Resonance Modes in a Square Nanocavity Coupled with Metal–Insulator–Metal Plasmonic Waveguide
Plasmonics (2022)
-
Robust, efficient, micrometre-scale phase modulators at visible wavelengths
Nature Photonics (2021)
-
Pulsed-Pump Laser-Induced Transition in Chalcogenide GST for Hybrid Plasmonic Modulator Application
Plasmonics (2021)
-
Optical-field driven charge-transfer modulations near composite nanostructures
Nature Communications (2020)