Geometry Induced Optimization of Energy Consumption in an Ultrafast Metamaterial Modulator

We investigate the energy consumption per bit of an all-optical ultrafast metmaterial modulator via improvements in the geometric design of the device. The device is a 100nm thick tri-layered Ag-Si-Ag fishnet structure metamaterial with a negative index resonance in the NIR. Previously, the device has been shown to be capable of terabit per second all-optical modulation requiring 3nJ/bit of energy. In this talk, we study different device geometries including stacked fishnet structures and variations in sidewall angles in order to reduce the energy consumption required to switch a single bit. Our simulations indicate an optimized structure that allows us to reduce our energy requirement to only 25pJ/bit for a device integrated with an optical fiber. Such improvements in energy consumption are essential for future practical devices allowing for terabit per second all-optical communication. They also provide insight into future energy-efficient metamaterial photonic devices.