Research on Total Reflection Effect for Graphene and its use in Electronic-optical Modulator

摘要

In this paper, a novel electronic-optical modulator based on total reflection effect of graphene is designed. The geometry of this novel electronic-optical modulator consists of two layers of graphene mixed with boron nitride and a layer of silicon waveguide. This new structure is quite different from the traditional modulator structure (traditional silicon based electro-absorption light modulator). Due to the tunability of the refractive index of graphene, when different voltage is applied to the heterojunction composed of graphene and boron nitride, the depth modulation of incident light at 1550nm wavelength can be achieved. Two different situations are chosen for analysis and calculation. The results show that by changing the magnitude of the voltage on the heterojunction, the light can be easily controlled to achieve or do not achieve the total reflection effect, so as to achieve the depth modulation of light. Finally, the new structure we proposed is almost 100% of the depth, which is incomparable to other structures.