Ultrafast and energy-efficient all-optical switching with graphene-loaded deep-subwavelength plasmonic waveguides

Abstract: All-optical switches have attracted attention because they can potentially overcome the speed limitation of electric switches. However, ultrafast, energy-efficient all-optical switches have been challenging to realize due to the intrinsically small optical nonlinearity in existing materials. As a solution, we propose graphene-loaded deep-subwavelength plasmonic waveguides (30 nm x 20 nm). Thanks to extreme light confinement, we have significantly enhanced optical nonlinear absorption in graphene, and achieved ultrafast all-optical switching with a switching energy of 35 fJ and a switching time of 260 fs. The switching energy is four orders of magnitudes smaller than that in previous graphene-based devices and is the smallest value ever reported for any all-optical switch operating at a few picoseconds or less. This device can be efficiently connected to conventional Si waveguides and employed in Si photonic integrated circuits. We believe that this graphene-based device will pave the way towards on-chip ultrafast and energy-efficient photonic processing.