Abstract

Two-dimensional-material integrated thermal optical switches have low power consumption; however, the devices are suffering from high propagation loss due to the two-dimensional material absorption. In this Letter, we present a graphene-embedded polymer Mach–Zender interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic switch, based on the $E_{01}^x$ mode and designed to minimize both the loss and power consumption. Based on the symmetry of a three-dimensional structure and the $E_{01}^x$ mode, the central embedded graphene electrode structure was simulated with an absorption loss of 0.06 dB/cm. Finite element method (FEM) simulations were run to find that the power consumption is 1.57 mW. Compared with the top heating electrode, the power consumption of the proposed graphene-embedded device is reduced by 74%. Further, the response speed of the graphene-embedded thermo-optic MZI switch is simulated to be 1.2 μs (rise) and 70.6 μs (down). This device may be applicable in the two-dimensional integrated low-power-consumption-mode division multiplexer field.

© 2019 Optical Society of America

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