EAGER: Novel Graphene Modulators

非技术性：随着社交媒体、在线医疗记录、云计算等新应用的出现，通过互联网和数据中心传输的数据量呈天文数字增长。能够按需传输如此海量信息的唯一可行技术是光纤技术。这依赖于通过光纤传输光辐射。然而，信息几乎总是以电子形式提供。在光纤上传输电子信息需要光学调制器。光调制器将电信息施加在光辐射上，光辐射通过光纤传输电信息。光调制器的需求量很大，并且要求非常紧凑、低功耗和低成本。此外，他们的技术应该允许与其他设备集成，以形成高功能微芯片。这项提议研究了在一种名为石墨烯的新型材料中使用这种调制器的可能性。石墨烯是由单层厚的碳原子组成的排列。因此，拟议的努力具有潜在的造福社会的潜力，并通过使用光纤进行更低成本、更高性能的数据传输，为生活质量做出重大贡献。技术：本提议为光调制器引入了一种高风险和高回报的方法。这是基于石墨烯独特的电光性质。描述石墨烯导电性的常用理论公式表明，当石墨烯中的费米能级改变时，石墨烯介电常数的实部和虚部发生巨大变化。这意味着非常紧凑和高效的光学调制。特别是，使用由薄介质隔开的两个石墨烯薄片可以在非常紧凑的介质波导中产生非常大的有效折射率变化。基于这一理论分析的建模表明，即使没有明显的优化，调制器的性能也明显好于现有技术。如果精心优化和设计，回报可能会更大。然而，有一些重大的未知因素可能会限制这些预测。这项提案调查了这些想法的准确性，看看石墨烯是否可以用于卓越的调制器，这些调制器将成为下一代数据通信和电信应用的主力。将进行一项实验研究来验证该方法的预测。基本的调制器结构将被制造和表征，以量化通过外部电压在石墨烯中诱导的有效折射率变化。这项研究的结果有望对描述石墨烯的基础科学做出根本性的贡献。

Title: Study of Optical Modulators Based on Novel Material GrapheneAbstractNontechnical: With the advent of new applications such as social media, online medical records, cloud computing there is an astronomical increase in the data that is transmitted over the Internet and within the data centers. The only viable technology to transmit such vast amounts of information on demand is the fiber optics technology. This relies on transmitting optical radiation through optical fiber. However information is almost always available in electrical form. Transmitting electrical information over the optical fiber requires optical modulators. Optical modulator imposes electrical information on the optical radiation which transports electrical information over the optical fiber. Optical modulators are needed in large quantities and are desired to be very compact, low power consuming and low cost. Furthermore their technology should allow integration with other devices to form high functionality microchips. This proposal investigates the possibility of such modulators in a novel material called graphene. Graphene is an arrangement of mono layer thick carbon atoms. Therefore the proposed effort has the potential to benefit the society and make a significant contribution to quality of life through lower cost, higher performance data transmission using fiber optics.Technical: This proposal introduces a high risk and high reward approach for optical modulators. This is based on unique electro-optic properties of graphene. Commonly used theoretical formulas that describe conductivity of graphene suggest huge changes in real and imaginary parts of graphene dielectric constant when Fermi level in graphene is changed. This suggests very compact and efficient optical modulation. In particular using two graphene sheets separated by a thin dielectric can be used to generate very large effective index changes in a very compact dielectric waveguide. Modeling based on this theoretical analysis indicates modulator performance significantly better than the state of the art even without significant optimization. The rewards could be much bigger with careful optimization and design. However, there are significant unknowns that may limit these predictions. This proposal investigates the veracity of these ideas to see if graphene can be utilized for superior modulators that will be the work horse of next generation datacom and telecom applications. An experimental study will be performed to verify the predictions of this approach. Basic modulator structures will be fabricated and characterized to quantify effective index changes induced in graphene through external voltages. The results of this study are expected to be a fundamental contribution to basic science that describes graphene.