Graphene-embedded first-order mode polymer Mach-Zender interferometer thermo-optic switch with low power consumption.

Two-dimensional-material integrated thermal optical switches have low power consumption; however, the devices are suffering from high propagation loss due to the two-dimensional material absorption. In this Letter, we present a graphene-embedded polymer Mach-Zender interferometer (MZI) thermo-optic switch, based on the E01x mode and designed to minimize both the loss and power consumption. Based on the symmetry of a three-dimensional structure and the E01x mode, the central embedded graphene electrode structure was simulated with an absorption loss of 0.06 dB/cm. Finite element method (FEM) simulations were run to find that the power consumption is 1.57 mW. Compared with the top heating electrode, the power consumption of the proposed graphene-embedded device is reduced by 74%. Further, the response speed of the graphene-embedded thermo-optic MZI switch is simulated to be 1.2 µs (rise) and 70.6 µs (down). This device may be applicable in the two-dimensional integrated low-power-consumption-mode division multiplexer field.