LAUSR

Here, electrically tunable amplitude and phase modulators are designed by the hybridization of indium tin oxide (ITO) into a guided-mode resonance mirror (so-called GMRM) which consists of a high-index silicon (Si) nanograting placed on top of a Si guiding core followed by a silicon-dioxide optical buffer layer and a highly reflective substrate. The physical mechanism is based on the intriguing optical characteristics of GMRMs and integration of a dual-gated ITO with the capability of charge carrier modulation into the Si nanograting. A gate-tunable amplitude modulator with a modulation depth as high as ≈0.80 is realized by careful selection of structural parameters, excitation of a strongly coupled guided-mode resonance, and modifying the external bias voltage. This design can also be adjusted only by changing the thickness of its optical buffer layer and moderating the strength of the guided-mode resonance to serve as an efficient active phase modulator. The phase variation of ≈210° and relatively high ...