Three-Dimensional Analysis of an Ultrashort Optical Cross-Bar Switch Based on a Graphene Plasmonic Coupler

A high-performance electro-optical cross-bar switch based on a vertical graphene plasmonic directional coupler is proposed. The structure consists of two pattern-free graphene plasmonic waveguides which have major advantages over their previous counterparts. An ultrashort switching length of just 223 nm is obtained at the frequency of 37.5 THz. To the best of our knowledge, this switching length is remarkably shorter than those in the recently reported structures. Our designed structure is simulated using a three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method. According to the illustrated results, extinction ratios of 10.5 and 9.52 dB are obtained at the cross and bar ports, respectively, and a wide spectral width of more than 1 μm is presented. The required switching voltage is also calculated as 6 V and a very high 3 dB bandwidth of more than 60 GHz is obtained. An extremely low switching energy of 3.8 fJ/bit is also estimated.