Actively tunable terahertz switches based on subwavelength graphene waveguide

Abstract

As a new field of optical communication technology, on-chip graphene devices are of great interest due to their active tunability and subwavelength scale. In this paper, we systematically investigate optical switches at frequency of 30 THz, including Y-branch (1 × 2), X-branch (2 × 2), single-input three-output (1 × 3), two-input three-output (2 × 3), and two-input four-output (2 × 4) switches. In these devices, a graphene monolayer is stacked on the top of a PMMA (poly methyl methacrylate methacrylic acid) dielectric layer. The optical response of graphene can be electrically manipulated; therefore, the state of each channel can be switched ON and OFF. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the transmission direction can be well manipulated in these devices. In addition, the proposed devices possess advantages of appropriate ON/OFF ratios, indicating the good performance of graphene in terahertz switching. These devices provide a new route toward terahertz optical switching.