Integrated liquid crystal optical switch based on double teeth-shaped structure at telecom wavelengths

Abstract

The characteristics of a double teeth-shaped plasmonic optical switch are analyzed. Based on the metal–insulator–metal waveguide consisting of double rectangular teeth, a nanoscale liquid crystal optical switch is proposed and numerically simulated by using the finite difference time domain method with a perfectly matched layer absorbing boundary condition. It is found that the double teeth-shaped structure filled with liquid crystal can realize the function of a switch. The modulation depth of the double teeth-shaped structure is larger than 50 dB.

Keywords:

• surface plasmons
• optical switching devices
• integrated optics devices

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China (Grant No. 07117866) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61077038).