Ultra-compact TE and TM pass polarizers based on vanadium dioxide on silicon

Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a metal-insulator transition (MIT) oxide recently used in plasmonics, metamaterials, and reconfigurable photonics. Because of the MIT, VO2 shows great change in its refractive index allowing for ultra-compact devices with low power consumption. We theoretically demonstrate a transverse electric (TE) and a transverse magnetic (TM) pass polarizer with an ultra-compact length of only 1 mu m and tunable using the MIT of the VO2. During the insulating phase, both devices exhibit insertion losses below 2 dB at 1550 nm. Changing to the metallic phase, the unwanted polarization is attenuated above 15 dB while insertion losses are kept below 3 dB. Broadband operation over a range of 60 nm is also achieved. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America